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Very low birth weight linked to reduced quality of life in pre-school children |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Babies with very low birth weights tend to have a much lower quality of life when they are three or four years old, according to a study published in the latest issue of the UK-based Journal of Advanced Nursing. Researchers assessed 118 children who had birth weights of 1500g or less and compared them with a control group of 170 born at normal weights to compare their quality of life when it came to physical, emotional, cognitive and social functions. They discovered that the very low birth-weight children scored consistently lower scores on a scale designed to measure quality of life among pre-school children. Their parents were also much more likely to say that their child had health issues, with 29 per cent reporting a current problem, compared with 18 per cent in the control group. In general, children with low birth weight had poorer lung function, appetite and motor function than normal birth-weight children, as well as being more anxious, less positive and less lively. "Previous studies of very low birth-weight babies have mostly focused on issues such as death, illness, neurodevelopment, growth and cognitive ability" says lead researcher Dr Li-Yin Chien, Associate Professor in the Institute of Community Health Nursing at National Yang-Ming University, Taiwan.
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