Prematurity Flashcards
What is prematurity?
when a baby is born before 37 completed weeks of gestation
What is a viable fetus?
when is born after 28 weeks gestation
Note: Birth before 28 weeks is a miscarriage or abortion
What is a low birth weight baby?
one with a birth weight of less than 2500g
What are the categories of low birth weight?
- low birth weight <2500g
- very low birth weight <1500g
- extremely low birth weight <1000g
Maternal predisposing factors of prematurity?
- Teen pregnancy
- Hard labour
- Poor nutrition
- Infections: Malaria, TORCHES
- Anaemia
What are the TORCHES infections?
- Toxoplasmosis
- Others (gonorrhea, hepatitis B, varicella-zoster virus, parvovirus B19, HIV)
- Rubella
- Cytomegalovirus
- Herpes Simplex
- Syphilis
Consequences of the TORCH infections?
- premature birth
- intrauterine growth restriction
- miscarriage
- stillbirth (loss of pregnancy after 20 weeks of gestation)
Fetal predisposing factors of prematurity?
- congenital anomalies
- genetic conditions
Complications of prematurity?
- apneic attacks
- respiratory distress syndrome
- anaemia
- jaundice
- infection
- food intolerance
- necrotising enterocolitis
- cerebral and intraventricular haemorrhage
- heart failure and pulmonary edema
- poor mental and intellectual development years
- retinopathy of prematurity
What causes apneic attacks?
The baby is prone to these attacks because of immaturity of the lungs and the respiratory centre
What causes RDS?
- Atelectasis can develop with the possibility of developing hyaline membrane disease
- Notice that all these lead to respiratory distress syndrome
- Frequent apnoec attacks leads to cyanosis and signify very poor chance of survival
What causes anemia?
- The immature bone marrow
- iron stores in the foetus are laid in the last four weeks of intra-uterine life make premature baby is prone to anaemia
What causes jaundice?
Complications of jaundice?
Due to immaturity of the liver, bilirubin cannot be conjugated
- Sometimes the level of unconjugated bilirubin rises to as high as 20mg/100ml and causes kernicterus
- Kernicterus is neurological sequelae that comes as a result of the bilirubin crossing the blood brain barrier.
What causes infection?
common complication since the immune system is immature
What causes NEC?
immaturity of the childs digestive system
- NEC involves infection and inflammation in the childs gut which may stem from the growth of dangerous bacteria in parts of the intestine they don usually live
What causes food intolerance?
digestive system may not be fully developed
What causes cerebral and intraventricular haemorrhage?
The fragile capillaries and small veins easily rupture and the baby may display abnormal neurological function