Risk Factors for Neonatal Morbidity and Mortality Among “Healthy,” Late Preterm Newborns
Section snippets
Methods
Our study design used a population-based cohort of singleton, vaginally delivered, healthy-appearing late preterm infants born to Massachusetts residents in Massachusetts hospitals from January 1, 1998 through November 30, 2002. We obtained data from the Massachusetts Pregnancy to Early Life Longitudinal (PELL) Data System. PELL is a longitudinally linked dataset of mothers and their children from birth onward. PELL includes vital statistics records (birth and death certificates), health
Results
Of the 9552 late preterm, “healthy” infants, 4.8% had an inpatient readmission and 1.3% had an observational stay. Five infants had both an inpatient hospital re-admission and an observational stay. Four infants died in the neonatal period, and of these, 3 infants also had inpatient hospital readmissions.
The characteristics of our study population are described in Table 1. In this study, most of these late preterm infants were born at 36 weeks’ gestation, breastfed at discharge, and stayed in
Discussion
In this population-based study to identify risk factors for neonatal morbidity among “healthy,” singleton late preterm infants, we found that the independent risk factors for neonatal morbidity were: having an Asian/Pacific Islander mother, being firstborn, being breastfed at discharge, having a mother with any reported labor and delivery complications, and having a public payer source at delivery. However, when we stratified by breastfeeding status, we found that breastfed late preterm infants
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the following current and former PELL Team Members for their long hours and dedication to the linkage of the PELL datasets and for ensuring the quality of the linkages. These team members include Angela Nannini, Eugene Declercq, Mary Barger, Howard Cabral, Mark McLaughlin, Karen Clements, Hafsatou Diop, Penny Liu, Emily Lu, and Jane Lazar.
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Disclaimer: The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the funding agency.