Premature children may have worse cognitive abilities in school age – scientists

Scientists believe that children can have the consequences of premature birth even at school age

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Scientists have found that children born moderately prematurely (up to 34 weeks) have a long cognitive lag from their peers at early school age.

Such disorders are manifested in a smaller vocabulary, working and episodic memory.

This is stated in a study that Posted In Jama Network Open, writes Medicalxpress.

About 13 million infants are born prematurely every year in the world. Early childbirth is considered the main cause of childhood morbidity and mortality. Despite the achievement in perinatal care, a serious health problem is raised by cognitive violations of « hurried ».

Scientists are aware that premature birth can disrupt critically important processes of brain development that occur between 24 and 40 weeks of pregnancy. Earlier in their research, scientists focused on extremely and much premature -born children. At the same time, they did not take into account the moderate or late premature infants who make up a large part of the « hurry ».

In the new work, the team of scientists analyzed the cognitive indicators of children who were born up to 34 weeks of pregnancy. In addition, they explored narrower skills than the total IQ, as their colleagues did before.

Scientists have selected almost 6,000 children from the United States aged 9 to 10 years. Participants have passed a series of cognitive tests to evaluate cognitive activity on the basis of their results.

Analysis showed that moderately premature infants (born 32 to 33 weeks of pregnancy) had lower cumulative cognitive Indicators compared to peers born on time.

In addition, students who were « in a hurry » had a smaller vocabulary, work and episodic memory, as well as short- and long-term ability to reproduce information.

According to the authors of the work, cognitive The deficit corresponded to several months of progress in training for the age of the study participants. Scientists add that at the age of 9 to 10 years, this is often associated with lower academic achievements and the worst quality of life.

Similar results had children who were born up to 32 weeks. At the same time, the performance of students who were born after 34 weeks did not differ from those who had their full peers.

The study authors concluded that cognitive disorders associated with moderately premature births persist until late childhood. Scientists have excluded the possibility that the worst skills can be explained by socio-economic status, genetic data or other risk factors.

Results show that children born up to 34 weeks, may require constant observation and assistanceTo avoid development problems even at school age.

Earlier we toldWhy a child can be born prematurely and whether it can be prevented.