Developmental outcomes of infants born with extremely low birth weight at 12 months of age
The article presents the results of examining 118 12-month-old infants who were born with extremely low body weight. The patients were divided into 2 groups, the first comprised 56 infants who stayed at the resuscitation and intensive care unit in the period 2002-2008 (before introduction of the cardio-respiratory support protocol that takes into account advanced technologies of resuscitation and intensive care of newborns). Group 2 included 62 infants who stayed at hospital in 2009-2011 and received treatment according to the cardio-respiratory support protocol. By the moment of discharge from hospital, massive intraventricular haemorrhage (22.6 vs. 32.1%) and marked periventricular leukomalacia (14.5 vs. 25%) in infants of group 2 were recorded significantly less frequent. Despite the fact that infants of both groups had considerably lower values of physical development than full-term newborns, patients of group 2 had better outcomes of physical development by 12 months of age. Infants of this group less frequently had infantile cerebral palsy and complete or 50% loss of vision, and they had better developed motor skills. The major causes of disablement were isolated cerebral disorders and their combination with retinopathy of prematurity.