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Home › Articles › Newborn and Infant Months › Low Birth Weight Babies

Low Birth Weight Babies

Causes, Concerns and Outcomes

By Kelly Burgess

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  

  • Getting regular prenatal checkups.
  • Eating a healthy diet and take vitamin supplements containing folic acid before, during and after pregnancy.
  • Aggressively addressing existing medical conditions of the mother.
  • Not getting pregnant before age 20 or after age 35, as this increases the risk of low birth weight infants.
    • Long-term Outcomes
    In this area, the news is generally good. Most low birth weight babies will develop normally and will eventually reach their developmental milestones – it may just take them a little longer. The younger and smaller these babies are at birth, the more problems they will have. Both Senia Powell, now age 9, and Jacob Savoie, now age 5, have no long-term developmental issues in spite of their rocky starts.

    What's important, Dr. Subramanian says, is that parents and doctors be extra vigilant about watching for developmental problems so they can be addressed early.

    "There needs to be very specific follow up at ages 6, 12, 18 and 24 months," Dr. Subramanian says. "It they are identified with problems, the assistance can be put in place immediately to reduce the effect of any problems. In addition, we as a society need to insist that every insurance company, including Medicare and Medicaid, provide follow-up care through to mid-childhood and adolescence for those at risk for long-term problems. They do this in Europe and we should be able to do so in this nation where we have plenty."

    Dr. Subramanian's points about society's responsibility is bolstered by a recent study called "Self-Perceived Health-Related Quality of Life of Former Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants at Young Adulthood." In this study, researchers interviewed 143 adults born at an extremely low birth weight, and 130 comparable young adults born at normal birth weight. While extremely low birth weight young adults reported more limitations in cognition, sensation, mobility and self-care, there were no differences in the mean scores for health-related quality of life between groups, or between those with and without disabilities.


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