22-Week-Old Premature Babies Survival Rate Could Improve With Care, Resuscitation

Babies as young as 22 weeks old have a better chance at survival if they are given active treatment, says a new study.

The study published in The New England Journal of Medicine  found that babies born at 22 weeks could survive should they receive improved care and treatment such as ventilation, intubation, and other life-saving measures.

In the United States, the "point of viability," is at 24 weeks old. It is the stage where fetuses are considered fit to survive without the mother. According to Dr. Edward Bell of the University of Iowa, 22 weeks should be the new point of viability.

"That's what we think, but this is a pretty controversial area. I guess we would say that these babies deserve a chance," Bell said via UK Daily Mail.

The data used in the research was obtained from more than 4,000 premature live births at 24 different hospitals from 2006 to 2011. According to Time, babies who were born at 23 weeks above received better attention in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The same could be not said for babies born at 22 weeks and below.

"The [study] shows that variations in hospital rates of active treatment for babies born at 22 weeks gestation were highly attributable to the birth hospital," according Edward McCabe, the chief Medical Officer for the March of Dimes, via Time.

In the group of babies in the research, 78 of whom were 22-weeks old who received vigorous care and only 18 total babies survived. Of those, seven were healthy and 11 were left with deafness, blindness, and cerebral palsy.

"Overall, if you look at the mean survival rates for 22 week old babies [in the study], it was just two percent, and only nine percent for those who received resuscitation [and other care]," said Dr. Michael Uhing, NICU medical director from Wisconsin's Children's Hospital. The low percentage of survival rates garnered reflected that the non-resuscitation decision was made to not prolong the infant's inevitable death.

"When outcomes are with babies hospitals never resuscitated, the results may have been falsely low," Uhing told Time.

"It confirms that if you don't do anything, these babies will not make it, and if you do something, some of them will make it," according to Dr. David Burchfield of the University of Florida.  "Many who have survived have survived with severe handicaps."

Babies born at 22 to 23 weeks have a questionable chance of survival. Jeffrey M. Perlman, NICU medical director at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center, said via NY Times, "[W]e go after the 24-weekers. If it's 23, we will talk to the family and explain to them that for us it's an unknown pathway. At 22 weeks, in my opinion, the outcomes are so dismal that I don't recommend any interventions."