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Low birth weight babies are likely to develop mental & physical problems
06/Oct/2006: A report in the October’s issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, says that, babies who weigh less than 2 kilograms (4.5 pounds) at birth are likely to develop physical and mental difficulties, when they grow up.
Babies with low birth weight are vulnerable to major health risks/ disorders like cerebral palsy, mental retardation, type 2 diabetes, obesity etc., and now researchers suspect that low birth weight could also cause minor difficulties in motor skills and in thinking/cognitive abilities, which may last well in to the adolescence.
Agnes H. Whitaker, M.D, Columbia University Medical Center and New York State Psychiatric Institute and his colleagues, studied 474 non-disabled adolescents, who weighed less than 2 kilograms at birth and were born or admitted at one of three New Jersey hospitals between 1984 and 1987. The average age of the participants of this study was 16 and they underwent intelligence and motor tests in their homes.
During these tests many of the participants were found to have motor problems and their IQ scores were significantly lower than the average for their age group, even though it was well within the normal range. The study found that males, who had injuries to the white matter of the brain on neonatal ultrasound and who spent more days on ventilators in hospitals, were more likely to have motor difficulties. Injury to white matter, low fetal birth ratio and social disadvantages played an important role in lower IQ scores of the participants.
According to this study, prenatal, perinatal and neonatal biological risk factors are responsible for cognitive and motor outcomes till adolescence. The authors of the study concluded that prevention of injury to the white matter and mechanical ventilation can improve motor outcomes and prevention of intrauterine growth retardation and white matte injury can improve cognitive outcomes, in low birth weight babies.
The findings of this study shows that improved maternal-fetal and neonatal care can enhance the motor and cognitive outcomes in non-disabled, low birth weight babies.
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