Link Between Premature Babies and Mental Illness

by Beth McHugh | More from this Blogger

22 Jan 2009 11:20 PM

Children born pre-term have been found to experience over twice the rate of mental illness as compared to full-term, normal weight-for-age babies.

In a recent study at the University of Karolinska in Sweden, researchers noted in a long term study conducted over three decades that 5.5% of premature babies required admission to hospital for psychiatric related disorders compared to 2.9% of full-term babies.

The study involved premature babies born in the period 1973 to 1979 and followed their psychiatric health in the intervening decades using medical records. In order to adjust for pre-existing precursors of mental illness, statistical adjustments were made for mental illness predictors such as family history of mental illness and low socio-economic status.

The study has highlighted a casual link between the occurrence of premature births and various forms of mental illness. This knowledge has profound importance on the way mothers of premature babies and the premature babies themselves should be cared for, both during the immediate post birth period and through medical follow ups as the child reached its typical maturation landmarks.

The study, which involved over 500,000 infants indicated that babies born very early, between 24 and 28 weeks, were more than twice as likely to be admitted to hospital for psychiatric reasons by the time they had reached their 20s, as compared to their full-term peers.

It is hope that this conclusive knowledge will assisting in containing the trend among preterm infants, and assist in helping them to avoid possible mental health problems through early intervention ptograms.

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Beth McHugh began her career as a geologist and worked both in industry and as a university researcher.

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drnewmom (307) 25 Jan 2009 10:25 AM

Do you have a link to an all English version of the article? I was recently (2 years ago) diagnosed with bipolar type 2 at the age of 30. I was born 6 weeks early, so this research interests me. Additionally, I gave birth to a son last year who was only 26 weeks ... he is doing very well now, but just wondering if we have to watch him for problems (and, of course, I'm still searching for reasons why my problem came about). Thanks.

Beth McHugh (13216) 26 Jan 2009 04:31 PM

Hi There are several links to this research, here is just one of them. Hope this helps. http://www.topnews.in/healthcare/content/-2685scientists-link-premature-births-mental-illness