Preterm infants sometimes develop life-threatening complications that require immediate Neonatal ICU admission and management.
Some common issues that occur in a preterm infant include intraventricular hemorrhage, retinopathy of prematurity, apnea of prematurity, bronchopulmonary dysplasia, persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn, respiratory distress syndrome, feeding difficulties, gastroesophageal reflux disease, necrotizing enterocolitis, neonatal jaundice, and fetal growth restriction.
Now, prematurity is defined as a birth that occurs before 37 completed weeks of gestation.
The different degrees of prematurity can be defined by gestational age and birth weight.
The classification based upon gestational age is as follows: late preterm birth is when the gestational age is between 34 and less than 37 weeks; moderate preterm birth is between 32 and less than 34 weeks; very preterm birth is under 32 weeks; and extremely preterm birth - when the gestational age is below 28 weeks.
The birth weight classification is as follows: low birth weight is when the baby weighs less than 2500 grams, very low birth weight is under 1500 grams; and extremely low birth weight is when the baby weighs less than 1000 grams.
First, in intraventricular hemorrhage, bleeding in the germinal matrix occurs within the first day after birth.
The germinal matrix is located between the caudate nucleus and the thalamus, at the level of the foramen of Monro.
The etiology is multifactorial but it’s primarily attributed to vascular fragility and to disturbances in cerebral blood flow.
