title: Post-natal growth of 157 children born as extremely premature neonates.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  With increasing survival rate of extremely premature neonates, their long-term outcomes including growth and risk factors for later disorders need to be considered. We prospectively evaluated anthropometric parameters in children born as extremely premature neonates.
  
  
  METHODS
  Anthropometric parameters were measured at the ages of 2 and 5 years in 72 extremely premature children born between the 22nd and 25 + 6th weeks of gestation (group I) and 85 children born between the 26th and 27 + 6th weeks of gestation (group II).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Although catch-up in the postnatal growth was observed in both groups of children, resulting in growth improvement, the height of the extremely premature children at the ages of 2 and 5 years remains lower (P < 0.01) compared with the control population. A decline in head growth was observed in both groups between the ages of 2 and 5 years, resulting in decrease of standard deviation score (SDS) for head circumference (HC) in comparison with that of the control population, accompanied by an increased number of children with microcephaly, defined as HC < -2 SD. At the age of five, microcephaly was found in 18% of children from group I and 11.7% of children from group II. At the age of 5 years, the waist and hip circumferences and ten skinfolds were not different between both groups of children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Long-term follow-up of extremely premature neonates is important not only to establish their growth patterns but also for risk factors assessment including adiposity for later development of adult-onset diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, First Faculty of Medicíne, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jitka
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kytnarova
authors.forename: Blanka
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zlatohlavková
authors.forename: Ales
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kubena
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Markova
authors.forename: Milena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dokoupilova
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Plavka
authors.forename: Jiri
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zeman
mesh_terms: D000886:Anthropometry; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D047928:Premature Birth; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013534:Survival