OBJECTIVE We examined the relationships among gestational age at birth, maternal characteristics, and standardized test performance in Georgia first-grade students. METHODS Live births to Georgia-resident mothers aged 11 to 53 years from 1998 through 2003 were deterministically linked with standardized test results for first-grade attendees of Georgia public schools from 2005 through 2009. Lo...

Children born preterm exhibit working memory deficits. These deficits may be associated with structural brain changes observed in the neonatal period. In this study, the relationship between neonatal regional brain volumes and working memory deficits at age 2 years were investigated, with a particular interest in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex and the hippocampus. While the...

OBJECTIVE Increasing numbers of infants born preterm survive into adulthood. In this study, we analyzed the effect of having been born preterm on disability and vocational success in young adults. METHODS A Swedish national cohort of 522,310 infants born in 1973-1979 were followed up for disabilities and income in national registers in 2002 at the age of 23 to 29. Hypotheses were tested in mu...

BACKGROUND A deviant motor behaviour at age 3 to 5 months is predictive of cerebral palsy (CP). Particular features of the early motor repertoire even proved predictive of the degree of functional limitations as classified on the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) in children with CP, born preterm. AIMS We aimed to determine whether an association between the early motor reper...

Postural adjustments during sitting on a moveable platform were assessed by means of multiple surface EMGs of neck, trunk and leg muscles and kinematics in three groups of children, aged 1 1/2-4 1/2 years. The first group consisted of 13 preterm children (born at a gestational age of 25-34 weeks), whose neonatal ultrasounds had shown distinct lesions of the periventicular white matter (PWM). Th...

BACKGROUND Accumulating evidence implicates early life factors in the aetiology of non-communicable diseases, including asthma/wheezing disorders. We undertook a systematic review investigating risks of asthma/wheezing disorders in children born preterm, including the increasing numbers who, as a result of advances in neonatal care, now survive very preterm birth. METHODS AND FINDINGS Two rev...

OBJECTIVE To study mode of birth, perinatal health and death in children born to mothers with intellectual disability (ID) in Sweden. DESIGN Population-based register study. SETTING National registers; the National Patient Register linked to the Medical Birth Register. SAMPLE Children of first-time mothers with ID (n = 326; classified in the International Classification of Diseases 8-10) ...

From about 8% to 27% of extremely preterm infants develop symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, but the causes are not well understood. Preterm infants receive the same doses of the recommended vaccines and on the same schedule as term infants. The possible role of vaccination in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) among premature infants is unknown, in part because pre-licensure clinical trials...

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of preterm birth on the development of the dentition. The spesific aims were to examine the effect on deciduous and permanent tooth crown dimensions, the eruption of permanent teeth and the sagittal occlusal relationships within the dentition. The subjects consisted of 328 prematurely born (< 37 gestational weeks ) white and black children and 180...

The present paper presents clinical and neurophysiological data of postural behavior in preterm children without CP. Clinical follow-up studies of preterm infants until toddler and school age have reported that low-risk preterm infants may have atypical postural behavior in terms of reduced amount of rotation during crawling, delayed dynamic balance, delayed onset of and a poor quality of early...