Premature babies may suffer lasting behavioral issues: research

One in five extremely premature babies end up suffering serious behavioral problems that affect their everyday lives, a new thesis from the University of Lund in southern Sweden showed Monday.

The study that underpins the thesis tracked the development of around 400 premature babies. It found that among those born before the 28th week of pregnancy, 20 percent showed serious behavioral issues already at the age of two and a half.

"These children are more socially withdrawn and more anxious, and they have significant attention deficits," Johanna Mansson, the researcher behind the study, told Swedish Radio.

Roughly a third of the children in the study fell far below the expected levels of cognitive abilities, meaning they had troubles with memory, logic and correlation.

A total of 6 percent of the children were deemed to have permanent cognitive issues. As a group, the extremely premature also performed worse than children born at full term when it came to cognition, language and motor skills.

Furthermore, the results indicate that premature birth can have a more negative effect on boys than on girls.

The thesis from the University of Lund is part of a national study called Express, one of the world's biggest studies of extremely premature children. Endit