High-Risk Newborns Benefit from Most Advanced Hospital Care
A new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study demonstrates that very low birth weight infants have a markedly better outcome if they are born at hospitals that specialize in providing care for high-risk babies.
According to the study, infants weighing approximately 1.1 to 3.3 pounds who were born at hospitals without high-level perinatal or neonatal care face twice the risk of death or serious illness as infants of the same weight who are born in hospitals with high-level, subspecialty care.
"The study supports existing recommendations that infants born at less than 32 weeks' gestation be delivered at hospitals that are able to provide comprehensive care for pregnant women and neonates in all risk categories," says Barb Warner, MD, a neonatologist at Cincinnati Children's and TriHealth Hospitals and the study's lead author.
The study, which reviewed births at 19 Greater Cincinnati hospitals, was published in the January 2004 issue of Pediatrics. Hospital services for expectant mothers and newborns in this area already are organized within the region to provide optimal access to expertise and experience, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
