Premature Babies Have A Better Chance To Live, Research Suggests!

Recent research shows that the babies who were born between 22-24 weeks survived life without neurological problems. In contrast with this, researchers observed the babies who were born decade earlier are more prone to this problem.

Usually, healthy babies were born after a full-term pregnancy at 37 to 40 weeks. However, a recent study made by Duke Health published in the New England Journal of Medicine diagnosed that 4,274 babies who were born 22 to 24 weeks don't have the signs of moderate and severe cognitive and motor delay.

In 2008 to 2011, 30% of children who were born continue to live while in 2008-2011, the rate increased to 36%. This will sum up that the rate of survivors of premature babies rose from 16% to 20%.

One of the researchers, Professor Noelle Younge saw this as a sign an acceptable reason to call the findings "encouraging" because he can see that there was a progress with it.

"We see evidence of improvement over time. But we do need to keep an eye on the overall numbers, as a large percentage of infants born at this stage still do not survive, "Prof Younge explained.

As for Prof Michael Cotten, one of the lead researchers confessed that the changes in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) - unit meant for premature babies - doing its best for a better improvement, BBC News reported. He even added that they are now into focus on how they'll improve their system with the prevention of infection among the premature babies. At the same time, he said that they are taking an advantage of the mother's milk, which linked to having better outcomes.

More importantly, Professor Cotten stressed out that there was a decrease in infection rates in neonatal intensive care units done with the past two decades. On the other side, Prof Cotten said that a greater use of steroid in mother may contribute to the rise of survival rate.