Physical Profile of Preterm Children in Ahmednagar District of Maharashtra, India

With survival rates of preterm and low-birth weight infants improving, there is an increase in the number of these infants with motor impairments later in life, ranging from developmental coordination disorder to cerebral palsy (CP). Infant neuromotor examinations are performed for a variety of purposes, including discriminating between infants who have motor dysfunction and those who are developing typically (discriminative tool), predicting which infants will have future motor problems from current performance (predictive tool), and evaluating changes over time (evaluative tool). Objective: This report describes the physical and functional status of preterm and low birth infants in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Method: An observational study was conducted in which INFANIB was administered on 43 preterm and low birth weight infants with corrected age of 10 days-120 days. All the components of INFANIB were administered to these infants except component no. 11,12,16,17. After administration of INFANIB the score from each component were summed together and calculated the final score. According to these final score each infant were categorized into 3 categories that is Normal, Abnormal and Transient. Results: According to standard cut off points of INFANIB 4 infants were fall in Abnormal category and remaining 39 infants were fall in category of transient. When mean was calculated of all the components of INFANIB we found that the 2nd and 5th component is more affected when compare with other component (mean=2.9, 2.8, resp.). When the total mean score compared with Degree of Normality to abnormality with age 7 months or less we found that all the infants are fall into moderately abnormal category (mean=55.5). Conclusion: The present study concluded that when INFANIB is administered to assess the physical profile of preterm children in Ahmednagar city out of 43 patients 4 infants were fall in Abnormal category and remaining 39 infants were fall in category of transient.