Prematurity is one of the great challenges of current medicine. One out of every thirteen babies born in Spain do so prematurely, with the risks of having arrived in the world too soon, when their organs are not yet mature enough.
Premature babies are at greater risk of infections, neurological problems, deafness, blindness, problems of intellectual retardation and even of not surviving, but in recent years the survival of these little champions has improved markedly, especially in the group of extreme premature babies, born between weeks 22 and 28 of gestation, whose deaths have decreased in the last decade.
A large study conducted in England and published in the 'New England Journal of Medicine' with data from 22,248 children born alive between weeks 22 to 28 of gestation between 2000 and 2011, indicates that deaths attributed to immaturity or lung problems fell and complications from infection or injury of the central nervous system.
However, a worrying fact is that in these years the deaths attributed to necrotizing enterocolitis, a very common disease in premature infants that consists in the destruction of parts of the intestine, for which breast milk provides protection, have increased.
According to study data, there were 258 deaths between 2008 and 2011 for every 1,000 premature live births, 9.6 percent less compared to the previous three years. Overall, 40.4 percent of deaths occurred within 12 hours after birth, and 17.3 percent occurred after 28 days.
There are more and more resources for extreme premature people to succeed. If we take into account the 10 years covered by the study, the greatest decreases in mortality occurred among babies born at 23 or 24 weeks of gestation, which raises a review of the gestational age limit for abortion.
