- When placed in car seats, babies who are only a week or two premature can have breathing problems similar to those faced by infants born much earlier, a new study suggests.
"Infants who spent time in both the neonatal intensive care unit and the newborn nursery had the highest risk of failing, which is important for doctors to know when preparing these babies for discharge home," said senior study author Dr. Natalie Davis of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Pregnancy normally lasts about 40 weeks, and babies born after 37 weeks are considered full-term. In the weeks immediately after birth, preemies often have difficulty breathing and digesting food. Some premature infants also encounter longer-term challenges such as impaired vision, hearing and cognitive skills as well as social and behavioral problems.In the study, 8.5per cent of babies who were in both the NICU and the newborn nursery before discharge failed the car seat screening tests.
All babies should be placed in car seats when they ride in a car. But the seats used by most newborns may not work for some late-term preemies because these babies are smaller, weigh less and have immature lungs, brains and hearts, Davis said. Preemies may not breathe effectively for several weeks after birth.