The Effect of Pre-Term Infants' Decreasing Mortality on their Future Morbidity: Preliminary Examination of Long-Term Outcomes of Stimulation Programs for Pre-Term Infants

Abstract

The percentage of neonates that will be classified as premature infants in 1978 will be approximately 8 percent of all live births. In spite of all the advances in perinatalogy in the past decade the rate of prematurity has remained unaltered. The definition of a premature infant, however, has received critical scrutiny in the past decade. Any infant who, at birth, weighs 2500 grams (5 1/2 pounds) or less, for vital statistic purposes, is classified as premature. Such a definition does not differentiate between the undersized infant who is the product of a 9 month pregnancy and the infant of comparable birth weight who is born several weeks or even months prior to his mother's expected date of confinement. 'Pre-term infant' is the term now used to connote an infant who is born at 37 or fewer weeks from conception (Hunt and Rhodes, 1977, p. 206). The term 'small-for-gestational-age infant' is used by Lubchenco (1978) for an infant of any gestational age who, at birth, is below the 10th percentile for the expected weight of an infant born that long after conception. The term 'appropriate-for-gestational-age' means that the pre-term infant's measurements, clinical features, and neurological examination are congruent with expected values for the length of time he has been in utero.