Groeipatronen van laat prematuur geborenen

Background: Late preterm infants (born at 32 0/7 – 35 6/7 weeks’ gestation) form a separate risk group. Growth is a good indicator of health and wellbeing of preterm infants. However, little is known about late preterm infants concerning growth and development. Understanding the growth patterns, possible growth restraint and their catch-up growth for weight, length and head circumference, can improve growth screening and monitoring for this group of children. The aim of this study was to investigate growth of late preterm infants up to 2 years of age. Methods: The data was drawn from the Retrieval, an already existing database, of Pinkeltje Research. Different measurements of late preterm infants were examined. The mean of all these measurements were compared to the mean from the growth curves of Kloosterman, Usher and McLean and TNO/LUMC, growth research 1997 using the One Sample T Test. Furthermore the -2 standard deviation score and the 10th percentile were also taken from the known curves and it was calculated which percentage of late preterm infants were under this value. Results: After datacleaning the population in this study consisted of 798 neonates, 1045 one year old infants and 1031 two year old preschool children. Significance analyses were performed with the One-sample T test. This test showed that almost all variables were significantly different. Body height was significantly lower than the standard curves after birth until 2 years of age. Growth restraint decreased with increasing age was not significantly deviant anymore for boys for their weight at 2 years of age and for their head circumference at 12 month of age. Preterm girls born at 32/33 weeks’ gestation did not have significantly deviance for head circumference at 12 months of age. For girls born at 34/35 weeks’ gestation deviance of head circumference was absent already at an age of 9 months. The percentage of late preterm infants under -2 standard deviation and the 10th percentile is considerably large. 17,9% of the boys born at 32/33 weeks’ gestation were SGA for their weight. This percentage for girls was only 6,3%. At a gestational age of 34/35 weeks boys and girls were respectively 11,1% and 8,3% SGA. Conclusion: Late preterm infants show a significantly restraint in weight, length and head circumference from their birth in comparison with term infants. Until 2 years of age boys will catch up in weight and head circumference and girls only in head circumference, to values that are average in term born children. A considerably large percentage late preterm infants lay under -2 standard deviation of under 10th percentile for as well as weight, length and head circumference at different moments of measurement. As age progresses, the percentage decreases. So, growth concerning length, weight and head circumference is important to follow in the first 2 years of life.