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As mortality in extremely premature infants (gestational age, ≤27 weeks) improves, a major clinical focus is to maximize neurodevelopmental outcomes. In a prospective, population-based study, researchers evaluated the degree of early childhood disability and impairment in extremely premature infants born to mothers with free access to excellent prenatal care in Sweden. They compared 2.5-year clinical and neurodevelopmental outcomes between 456 surviving children (69% of the original cohort of extremely premature live births) and 701 matched full-term controls.
At a mean age of 2.5 years, 42% of children in the preterm group and 78% of controls had no disabilities, 31% versus 17% had mild disabilities, 16% versus 3% had moderate disabilities,…