A new study from UAB suggests that women at risk of preterm delivery, from as early as 23 weeks of pregnancy, should receive corticosteroids due to strong associations with a lower rate of death and serious illness for their babies. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, says that very premature babies seem to benefit the most from the steroids, even those born at 23 weeks of gestation.“Indeed, the benefits of antenatal corticosteroids were substantially larger for infants born at the lowest gestations, including less than 28-week infants, for which data from randomized controlled trials are most limited,” said Wally Carlo, M.D., senior investigator of the study and director of the UAB Division of Neonatology.
Compared to babies born at term, premature babies carry a greater risk of death or serious complications after birth, with problems tending to be more severe the earlier a baby is born. Infants exposed to antenatal corticosteroids had lower mortality and lower rates of brain bleeding.
Colm Travers, M.D., third-year fellow in the UAB Division of Neonatology and principal investigator of the study, and a team of researchers analyzed data for 117,941 infants born between 23 and 34 weeks of gestation from 2009 to 2013 at 300 neonatal intensive care units across the United States. Death or major illness was analyzed by gestational age and exposure to antenatal corticosteroids, adjusting for factors such as birth weight, sex, mode of delivery and multiple births.
Read the story at UAB News.