Since the mid-1990s several studies have reported poor school performance in extremely preterm infants. The necessity to provide a full picture of the child's situation has been indicated. In a southern Swedish population 32,120 infants were born during the 2-y period 1985-1986. In total, 121 infants (0.4%) were reported liveborn before the 29th gestational wk and 12 (0.04%) were reported stillborn. Only 65 infants (50%) survived to the age of 10 y. The aim of this study was to evaluate the situation of extremely preterm (EPT) children at school, compared with that of full-term (FT) control children, at the age of 10 y. Health, cognitive development, school achievement and behaviour were measured. Ninety-two percent of the preterm children had no major neurological disability and most were in good health. The EPT children had an IQ of 90 +/- 15 vs 106 +/- 15 (mean +/- SD) for the FT children (p <0.001), and on the test of Visual-Motor Integration, the EPT children had 93.3 +/- 12.2 vs 109.6 +/- 14.2 for FT peers (p < 0.001). On both tests the differences between the groups corresponded to approximately one standard deviation. Thirty-eight percent of the EPT children performed below grade level at school. Thirty-two percent had general behavioural problems and 20% had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, compared with 10% and 8%, respectively, in the FT group. EPT children require interventions to support their development and reduce behavioural problems.

Stjernqvist K, Svenningsen NW. Ten-year follow-up of children born before 29 gestational weeks: health, cognitive development, behaviour and school achievement. Acta Paediatr 1999; 88: 557-62. Stockholm. ISSN 0803-5253 Since the mid-1990s several studies have reported poor school performance in extremely preterm infants. The necessity to provide a full picture of the child's situation has been indicated. In a southern Swedish population 32 120 infants were born during the 2-y period 1985-1986. In total, 121 infants (0.4%) were reported liveborn before the 29th gestational wk and 12 (0.04%) were reported stillborn. Only 65 infants (50%) survived to the age of 10 y. The aim of this study was to evaluate the situation of extremely preterm (EPT) children at school, compared with that of fullterm (FT) control children, at the age of 10 y. Health, cognitive development, school achievement and behaviour were measured. Ninety-two percent of the preterm children had no major neurological disability and most were in good health. The EPT children had an IQ of 90 AE 15 vs 106 AE 15 (mean AE SD) for the FT children (p`0.001), and on the test of Visual-Motor Integration, the EPT children had 93.3 AE 12.2 vs 109.6 AE 14.2 for FT peers (p`0.001). On both tests the differences between the groups corresponded to approximately one standard deviation. Thirty-eight percent of the EPT children performed below grade level at school. Thirty-two percent had general behavioural problems and 20% had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, compared with 10% and 8%, respectively, in the FT group. EPT children require interventions to support their development and reduce behavioural problems. & Behaviour, development, extremely preterm, follow-up, health, school achievement

In order to evaluate the usefulness of early continuous EEG-monitoring in very preterm neonates, recordings with a Cerebral Function Monitor (CFM) were made prospectively in 31 ESLBW infants with birthweights below 901 grams, during their first week of life. The CFM background activity was, as expected from EEG studies, dominated by a suppression-burst pattern in 94% of the infants. Some infants had periods with more continuous EEG activity or suppression-burst changing into continuous. Patterns similar to sleep-wake cycling (SWC) were identified in infants with gestational ages as low as 24 weeks. The level of the CFM-background activity was mainly influenced by the presence and severity of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), but also by medications such as phenobarbital. Epileptiform activity (EPA) was only found in infants with ICH, and was identified in 75% of these infants. Of the infants with EPA, 87% had periods with subclinical EPA, although 47% had both clinical and subclinical seizures. The presence of more continuous activity and SWC were indicators of a favourable outcome, whereas electrocerebral inactivity predicted an unfavorable outcome. The prognostic estimates of mortality and neurologic outcome were similar for early CFM recording (positive predictive value 69-100%) and cranial ultrasound scan (positive predictive value 71-100%). The monitoring of cerebral electrical activity also provided immediate and clinically useful information during the intensive care of these ESLBW infants. Further studies on the causal relation between EPA and the development of ICH should be performed before definite conclusions can be drawn concerning any preventive effect from anticonvulsive treatment of clinical/subclinical seizures.

In a long-term, prospective, control study, 20 extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) infants with birth weights between 500 and 900 g (mean 755 (SD 109) g) and gestational ages between 24 and 30 weeks (mean 26.2 (SD 1.8) weeks) were compared with 20 full-term infants at 4 years of age for growth, health, development and quality of life. Four of 20 (20%) ELBW children had major neurological disorders, which were all identified at the 1-year assessment. Seventeen (85%) ELBW children had cognitive development, assessed with the Griffiths mental development scale, within the normal range for age but lower than for full-term controls. The greatest deviations between ELBW and full-term children were found in locomotor and visual-motor integration functions. Eight ELBW children in all (40%), four with recurrent respiratory tract infections after neonatal mechanical ventilation and the four children with major neurological disorders had a higher rate of visits to physicians and hospital admissions. The behavioural symptom interview showed an increased rate of hyperactivity and difficulties in concentrating but not of general behavioural deviations in the ELBW group. Only by school age can all aspects of an extremely early birth be evaluated, but at 4 years of age, 85% of the ELBW children in our group had a good quality of life according to Scheffzek's categorizations.

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Infants who died showing the syndrome of sudden infant death (SIDS) and infants who survived attacks of lifelessness (AL) were examined in a prospective epidemiological multicentre study over 24 months covering close to 40% of all births in Sweden. Seventy SIDS cases and 34 cases of AL were observed, giving an incidence for SIDS of 0.94/1000 and for AL of 0.46/1000. This SIDS incidence is higher than that observed during the seventies. The boy/girl ratio was 1.4:1 for SIDS and 1.6:1 for AL. The age distribution for AL resembled that for SIDS. Similarities were also seen with regard to place of occurrence. Sixty per cent of the SIDS cases occurred during the daytime/evening. Twenty-nine per cent of the infants with AL had more than one apneic spell during the three-day-period around the attack, indicating a period of respiratory instability, but only 12% had such spells later on. None of the infants who had had AL died from SIDS. The possible relationship between AL and SIDS is discussed.

SUMMARY Thirty nine infants with severe asphyxia (28 affected perinatally and 11 later) were studied by electrophysiological cerebral function monitoring (CFM) for periods varying from a half to 49 days. Nineteen infants died while still in intensive care and two died later from sequelae. Eighteen survived and were followed up when aged between 8 and 36 months. The initial electroencephalogram (EEG) and the first 12 hours of CFM tracing correlated well. The type of background activity, whether continuous or interrupted, proved to be of high prognostic importance unlike the presence of seizure activity, which bore no distinct correlation to outcome in these severely asphyxiated infants.

Amplitude integrated EEG (aEEG) recordings from 32 mechanically ventilated infants, gestational age 32 weeks or less, were analysed. All recordings were started within 24 h of birth and continued for at least 50 h. Germinal layer haemorrhage (GLH) was diagnosed by repeated ultrasonography. In six infants neither GLH nor hypocalcaemia were diagnosed; aEEG in these infants rapidly became more active after birth: at 30 h of age continuous background activity was present for more than 20% of the time, and a seizure-like pattern was exceptional. In seven infants without GLH but with hypocalcaemia and other signs of metabolic derangement, continuous background activity appeared later and seizure-like activity was frequent. In the infants with GLH, depression of the background activity was apparent. This finding was particularly distinct in the presence of severe haemorrhages. Four infants developed GLH after 30 h of age. All these infants had depressed aEEG before the development of GLH, with less than 20% continuous activity at 30 h of age. In ten infants an analysis of the aEEG during the occurrence of GLH was possible. In six of these, cortical electrical activity decreased. Due to the limitation of GLH timing, it was not possible to decide whether this decrease closely preceded or followed GLH. We suggest that GLH primarily occurs in brains with a preceding metabolic and neurophysiologic abnormality, and that further functional deterioration is caused by the most severe haemorrhages.