Study: Medical Care Lags for RI Women

In a study examining health disparities among women, researchers using Rhode Island data found that women with disabilities receive less medical care and are more likely to experience adverse birth outcomes than typical women.

The study published in the December issue of Medical Care found that over 10 percent of women with disabilities in Rhode Island had a low birthweight infant, compared with 7 percent among non-disabled women. Meanwhile, over 13 percent of disabled women delivered babies prematurely versus 9 percent of typical women.

Researchers Find Weaker Brain Connections in Premature Babies

Researchers have found weaker brain connections along with increased chances of developing autism, ADHD and emotional disorders in premature babies. At the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, researchers reported that there exists strong evidence in favor of the fact that preemies are born with weak brain connections are more likely to develop various disorders.

Cynthia Rogers, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and her team compared MRI scans of the brains of 58 full-term babies with those of 76 babies born at least 10 weeks early. “We were really interested that the tracts that we know connect areas that are involved in attention and emotional networks were heavily affected”. By using two different types of MRI, researchers studied the nerve fibers that carry signals from one part of the brain to another. They also measured the intensity that how well different areas of the brain are communicating.

Study Finds Early Intervention Effective for Premature Infants' Development

Premature infants are born into a world their tiny bodies often are not ready for. Developmental differences between those babies and full-term infants often are apparent prior to a preemie’s discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have documented.

Their study points to opportunities for therapeutic interventions — even in the first few weeks of life — to improve premature babies’ long-term outcomes.
The research, which focused on infants born at least 10 weeks early, is available online and will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Pediatrics.

Preterm Births a Real Concern

From The Washington Times, a column by Brighid Moret, a freelance writer and first time mother.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While I may be pregnant with my first child, this is not my first pregnancy. The first one ended in a miscarriage in the first trimester, and left me, like many women who this has happened to, nervous about the continued healthy development of the child I’m now carrying.
While the chance of miscarriage drops drastically after the first trimester, the risk of a terminated pregnancy still exists, but changes character. A loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks is considered a miscarriage, something the American Pregnancy Association says occurs in 10-25% of all pregnancies.
After 20 weeks, many women think they are out of the danger zone for a pregnancy loss, but there is still a risk. Preterm labor can occur anywhere after 20 weeks and is the birth of any baby prior to 37 because uterine contractions cause the cervix to open earlier than normal.
The World Health Organization says that the rate of preterm birth in developed countries is 5-7%, however, The March of Dimes reports that the rate in the United States is 12%. To put that in perspective, The CDC says 1 in 8 babies are born prematurely every year in the U.S. and cites premature birth as the leading cause of death among newborns.
Infants born early typically have low birth weight and underdeveloped organs.
Given advances in medical care and technology, the survival rate for premature infants has increased. There are charts that list the estimated survivorship for infants born as early as 25 weeks – that’s 12 weeks preterm – all the way up to 36 weeks. The youngest surviving preterm baby was born in Germany in 2011 at 21 weeks and 5 days, and at first, medical professionals did not expect her to survive. The Quint Boenker Preemie Survival Foundation places the likelihood of survival of preterm birth at 23 weeks at 17% and 50% for births at 25 weeks. They say that most babies born at 32 weeks or later will be able to survive with medical assistance.

Defying Odds, Twins Prepare for Graduation

ELK RIVER, Minn. -- It does not take much to weigh out two pounds of grapes at the grocery store. Try it. Just a couple clumps of grapes should do it.
That is how much Karla and Kayla Koppendrayer weighed when they were born.
Actually, the twins, delivered in an emergency caesarean birth at 25 weeks, six days, weighed 2 pounds, 2 ounces each. Karla was a whopping 14.5 inches long while Kayla, born a minute later, was 14 inches in length.
In 1992, babies born this early in a pregnancy normally died, and if they did manage to make it, they would suffer severe developmental disabilities.
But these super (micro) preemies, as they are called, overcame many obstacles and will graduate May 27 from Spectrum High School in Elk River, Karla with a 3.93 grade point average (GPA) and Kayla with a 3.92 GPA.