Babies Worldwide

Researchers at Edinburgh University have found that there has been a significant rise in the number of premature births but there has also been a dramatic decrease in neonatal deaths. From 1980 to 2005 the rate of decrease has been more than 50%.

Currently 63 births out of every 1,000 are premature or roughly one in fifteen. The definition of a premature birth is a baby born before 37 weeks.

Prof Jane Norman director of the Tommy’s Centre for Maternal and Fetal Health Research at the University of Edinburgh, told BBC News Online: ‘The increase in survival rates for babies born prematurely backs up decisions by doctors to medically induce births to prevent potential complications.”

The Professor added: “’The increase in diabetes as a factor in premature births is also interesting and may be because there are more women with pre-existing diabetes – which is linked to obesity – as well as better diagnosis of expectant mothers with gestational diabetes.”

Survival rates of premature babies were greater when births were medically induced or took the form of pre-planned Caesarean section rather than those where labour occurred naturally.

Tags: premature babies, premature births, Professor Jane Norman

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.