Preterm Birth Literature Review

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2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Growth is a polygenic and multifactorial phenomenon and it is predominant during first two years of life. Growth during infancy is a predictor of adult health (1). Literature focusing on factors affecting morphometric indicators, growth of preterm born and full term born infants was reviewed put the present study in context and to highlight the exemplary studies done in this area.

2.1 Factors affecting growth of infants
Socio economic status of a family, nutrition, environmental factors, health status, smoking of mother are the major factors that affect fetal as well as infant growth (27). Maternal and paternal characteristics like education, occupation also has a significant impact on the growth of the infant (28). …show more content…

Preterm birth is risk factor for mortality, perinatal morbidity and neuro-developmental disabilities. Prematurity not only affects the neonates and their families but also has lot of implications for the health services as these infants may have to spend many weeks in the hospital …show more content…

A Systematic review of outcomes amount for survival, morbidity, growth and developmental delay for infants born preterm in low and middle income countries share their findings that prematurity is the leading cause of death in neonates with lower gestational ages. Several other studies report an increased risk of morbidity in preterm infants compared to infants born at term. This includes increased risk of cerebral palsy, respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), bronchi-pulmonary dysplasia and intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH) (40). A hospital based retrospective cohort study by Allen et al. of neonatal outcome of infants born at 22 to 25 weeks of gestation done in 1993 concluded that the incidence of neonatal complications decreases with the increase in gestational age (41). Additionally, findings obtained from a systematic review done in 2008 state that the risk of neonatal mortality and morbidity in infants who were both preterm and small for gestational age was higher than that of infants with either characteristic alone

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