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medpundit |
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Tuesday, January 28, 2003The small-scale study, from two universities in the US, aimed to provide some answers by comparing the progress of two sets of premature babies - all born at or before 36 weeks - based on a test taken in the first few hours after birth. This measures the acid levels of the blood, and higher levels are a good indicator that the baby has been starved of oxygen at some point during delivery. Half of the 52 children had normal blood test results after birth, and half had "mild to moderate acidosis" - a slightly higher reading, but not one usually associated with a longer-term impact. At the age of six, however, these children scored lower on verbal and "visuospatial" tests than the unaffected children. Researchers described it as "a large discrepancy". The article doesn’t say how low those children scored. Neither does the abstract. It’s hard to say how significant the difference in intelligence testing was. Researchers, you know, are prone to note “large discrepancies” in statisitcally small differences to boost their papers’ visibility. Reading this, you come away with the impression that premature babies end up stupid. This isn’t necessarily true. The same sort of findings could be equally applicable to babies born at term. They undergo the same stresses during birth. The only difference is that no one measures their acid levels (unless they come out really sick.) posted by Sydney on 1/28/2003 06:51:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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