Late Preterm Infants at Risk for Short-Term and Long-Term Morbidity and Mortality

Abstract

Late preterm births were the first group of premature infants who neonatologists treated successfully. Over time with the very low birth weight infants surviving and demanding many resources, near-term infants were relatively ignored and unfortunately were no longer considered to be of high risk by many health care providers. The resurgence of interest in this group, and their renaming to late preterm resulted from the recognition that they were indeed the largest subpopulation of preterm infants, and had an increased mortality when compared to term infants and increased morbidity including transient tachypnea of newborn (TTN), respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), respiratory failure, apnea, temperature instability, jaundice, hypoglycemia, feeding difficulties and a prolonged neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stay [1–5]. Furthermore, they have an increased prevalence of cognitive and neuro-developmental problems and a greater rate of readmission to hospital in the first weeks after discharge than term births. Escobar noted that many late preterm infants are never admitted to the NICU [6]. A possible explanation is that clinicians may be making clinical judgments based on infants’ birth weight only rather than gestation and birth weight.