BABIES born before they've been in the womb 37 weeks face a higher risk of complications very early in life

Being premature

BABIES born before they've been in the womb 37 weeks face a higher risk of complications very early in life. as they grow up, though, do people born prematurely continue to exhibit differences from those carried full-term?

A study analysed data on more than a million people born in Norway during a 20-year period; about 5% were premature births.

The more premature the infants had been, the more likely they were to have died before turning one year old. Survival rates improved through late childhood but remained lower, by comparison, for those born prematurely.

As teens and young adults, those who'd been premature were more likely to have attained less than a high school education and less likely to have gone to college than those who'd been full-term babies.

Adults wbo'd been premature infants also were less likely to have had children of their own. And women who'd been premature were more likely, once pregnant, to have given birth prematurely than were women born at full term; prematurity did not affect men's chances of fathering a premature infant.

Who may be affected? People born prematurely. In the United States, more than 12% of babies are premature, a rate that has been steadily increasing over the past two decades.

Caveats: The cause of the premature births was not indicated. The findings might be different for babies born today, given medical and technological advances in the 40 years since the study began.

You can find this study in the March 26 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Learn more about premature births at www.nichd.nih.gov/womenshealth (search for "preterm") and www.marchofdimes.com.