CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,402Infant Development and Preterm CareBirth, Development, and HealthNeonatal and fetal brain pathology

Long-Term Medical and Social Consequences of Preterm Birth

Moster, Dag, Lie, Rolv Terje, Markestad, Trond·2008·New England Journal of Medicine
DOI 10.1056/nejmoa0706475
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Advances in perinatal care have increased the number of premature babies who survive. There are concerns, however, about the ability of these children to cope with the demands of adulthood. METHODS: We linked compulsory national registries in Norway to identify children of different gestational-age categories who were born between 1967 and 1983 and to follow them through 2003 in order to document medical disabilities and outcomes reflecting social performance. RESULTS: The study included 903,402 infants who were born alive and without congenital anomalies (1822 born at 23 to 27 weeks of gestation, 2805 at 28 to 30 weeks, 7424 at 31 to 33 weeks, 32,945 at 34 to 36 weeks, and 858,406 at 37 weeks or later). The proportions of infants who survived and were followed to adult life were 17.8%, 57.3%, 85.7%, 94.6%, and 96.5%, respectively. Among the survivors, the prevalence of having cerebral palsy was 0.1% for those born at term versus 9.1% for those born at 23 to 27 weeks of gestation (relative risk for birth at 23 to 27 weeks of gestation, 78.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 56.5 to 110.0); the prevalence of having mental retardation, 0.4% versus 4.4% (relative risk, 10.3; 95% CI, 6.2 to 17.2); and the prevalence of receiving a disability pension, 1.7% versus 10.6% (relative risk, 7.5; 95% CI, 5.5 to 10.0). Among those who did not have medical disabilities, the gestational age at birth was associated with the education level attained, income, receipt of Social Security benefits, and the establishment of a family, but not with rates of unemployment or criminal activity. CONCLUSIONS: In this cohort of people in Norway who were born between 1967 and 1983, the risks of medical and social disabilities in adulthood increased with decreasing gestational age at birth.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1056/nejmoa0706475

Cites

1 of 1 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Adverse neonatal outcomes, for example, preterm birth and small for gestational age (SGA), can have long-term consequences among surviving infants, such as medical disabilities, impaired cognitive development, learning difficulties and behavioural- and psychological problems.

    “Likewise, adverse neonatal outcomes, for example, preterm birth and small for gestations age (SGA), can have long term consequences among surviving infants, such as medical disabilities, impaired cognitive development, learning difficulties and behavioural- and psychological problems [3].”

    From Associations between periconceptional lifestyle behaviours and adverse pregnancy outcomes (2021) · cites this paper as [3]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Moster, D., Lie, R. T., & Markestad, T.
Affiliations
  • Haukeland University Hospital (NO)
  • Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NO)
ORCID
Venue
New England Journal of Medicine
Publisher
Massachusetts Medical Society
Published
2008-07-17
Volume
359
Issue
3
Pages
262-273
ISSN
  • 0028-4793 (ISSN-L)
  • 1533-4406
DOI
10.1056/nejmoa0706475
OpenAlex
W2138652400
Cited by
1,402
References
1
Citations by year
2026: 41 · 2025: 50 · 2024: 65 · 2023: 66 · 2022: 83 · 2021: 91 · 2020: 93 · 2019: 89 · 2018: 87 · 2017: 81 · 2016: 112 · 2015: 88 · 2014: 82 · 2013: 87 · 2012: 74
FWCI
64.03
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • New England Journal of Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Infant Development and Preterm Care
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Birth, Development, and Health
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Neonatal and fetal brain pathology
Keywords
preterm birth, extremely preterm infants, gestational age, cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, disability pension, social outcomes, educational attainment, income, social security benefits, family formation, unemployment, criminal activity, long-term outcomes
MeSH terms
Adult, Cerebral Palsy, Developmental Disabilities, Crime, Educational Status, Employment, Female, Gestational Age, Persons with Disabilities, Disabled Persons, Humans, Income, Infant Mortality, Infant, Newborn, Infant, Premature, Male, Intellectual Disability, Norway, Risk, Cohort Studies, Reproductive Behavior, Premature Birth

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review