Uitkomsten van een Nederlandse cohort van zeer vroeg geboren kinderen uit 1983

- In 1983, Dutch paediatricians collaborated on a national level and collected perinatal data on 1338 liveborn infants with a gestational age < 32 weeks and/or a birthweight < 1500 g (Project on preterm and small for gestational age infants, POPS).

- Their outcome was assessed at 2 years of age by their paediatricians, at 5 years by a team of investigators, and at 9, 10-11 and 14 years by means of questionnaires completed by parents, teachers, and children themselves.

- The overall picture that emerges from this 14-year follow-up is that a small percentage of these very preterm infants (10) has a severe disability or handicap at school age. Although 90 of the children are without severe disabilities at school age, half of them meet serious difficulties in everyday life.

- The burden of mild developmental abnormalities, behavioural and learning disorders increases with age. This may seriously hamper fully independent adult life. Abnormalities found during early, standardised clinical neurological examination are highly predictive for these later problems.

- Early identification of developmental abnormalities in preterm infants and timely initiation of specific interventions may play an important role in limiting the effects of these abnormalities later in life.