Chronic Conditions, Functional Limitations, and Special Health Care Needs of School-aged Children Born With Extremely Low-Birth-Weight in the 1990s

Abstract

Advances in perinatal care in the 1990s, which included surfactant therapy and increased use of antenatal steroids, resulted in dramatic increases in the survival of extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW, 1 This has been accompanied by an increase in the rates of neonatal complications and early childhood neurodevelopmental problems.^1-4 However, there is little information on how these children function at school age when neurological, cognitive, and health status has to a large extent stabilized. With the exception of an abstract from Sweden,⁵ current information on the school-age outcomes of ELBW children is restricted to neurobehavioral and developmental disability.^6,7