Late preterm antenatal steroids

BACKGROUND: Knowing the impact of low birth-weight on late onset hypertension, we aimed at: describing systolic blood pressure (sBP) and renal function in 3-5 year-old preterm-born children, and determining which perinatal factors or factors in childhood were associated with an altered renal function at five years in these children. METHODS: Prospective longitudinal cohort study of children born 27-31 weeks gestation included at birth and examined at three, four and five years...

BACKGROUND: Prematurity is still a major problem for health care services throughout the world. Before the late 1980s, respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) was the primary cause of morbidity and mortality in preterm new-borns. Frequency of RDS and ensuing mortality in infants treated with antenatal steroid is less than those delivered without this therapy. Many pregnant females deliver before term or 37 weeks, hence may be advised this prophylactic therapy without creating significant maternal or foetal side effects...

Antenatal steroid treatment to enhance fetal lung maturity and surfactant treatment to prevent or treat respiratory distress syndrome have been major advances in perinatal medicine in the past 40 years contributing to improved outcomes for preterm infants. Use of postnatal steroids to prevent or treat chronic lung disease in preterm infants has been less successful and associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. Although early (in the first week of life) postnatal steroid treatment facilitates earlier extubation and reduces the risk of chronic lung disease, it is associated with adverse effects, such as hyperglycemia, hypertension, gastrointestinal bleeding and perforation, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, growth failure, and cerebral palsy, and cannot be recommended...

The management of preterm infants with low blood pressure soon after birth remains unresolved. The definition of what constitutes low blood pressure is uncertain. At birth, mean blood pressure appears to be gestation specific and increases in the first few days of life. Antenatal steroids, delayed cord clamping, and the avoidance of mechanical ventilation are all associated with higher mean blood pressure and less hypotension after birth. Rates of hypotension of 15-50% have been reported in various studies of extremely preterm infants...

BACKGROUND: In 2016, guidance statements were issued by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists about extending antenatal steroid use to selected late preterm singleton pregnancies. OBJECTIVE: We sought to review antenatal steroid use prior to the 2016 guidance statements and assess the potential impact of these. STUDY DESIGN: This cohort study used chart-abstracted data from singleton deliveries from Jan...

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BACKGROUND: Respiratory morbidity including respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) is a serious complication of preterm birth and the primary cause of early neonatal mortality and disability. While researching the effects of the steroid dexamethasone on premature parturition in fetal sheep in 1969, Liggins found that there was some inflation of the lungs of lambs born at gestations at which the lungs would be expected to be airless. Liggins and Howie published the first randomised controlled trial in humans in 1972 and many others followed...

BACKGROUND: Postnatal adaptation requires liquid clearance and lung aeration. However, their relative contribution to the expansion of functional residual capacity (FRC) has not been fully investigated. We studied evolution of lung liquid removal and lung aeration after birth in preterm lambs. METHODS: Lung liquid content and lung volume were assessed at birth and every 30 min over 2 h using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in three groups of lambs delivered by cesarean: preterm, late preterm, and late preterm with antenatal steroids...

OBJECTIVE:  To evaluate the effectiveness of antenatal corticosteroids given at ≥34 weeks' gestation. DESIGN:  Systematic review with meta-analysis. DATA SOURCES:  Electronic databases were searched from their inception to February 2016. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR STUDY SELECTION:  Randomized clinical trials comparing antenatal corticosteroids with placebo or no treatment in women with a singleton pregnancy at ≥34 weeks' gestation...

OBJECTIVES: To study the neonatal respiratory morbidity in late-preterm neonates. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was done over a period of 6 months (November 2014-April 2015) including 120 late-preterm births at a tertiary referral center. RESULTS: Among the 120 late-preterm babies, 42 (35 %) developed respiratory morbidity. Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) developed in 43 % of the babies who had not received steroid prophylaxis against 25...

The risk of hypertension is increased by intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and preterm birth. In the search for modifiable etiologies for this life-threatening cardiovascular morbidity, a number of pathways have been investigated, including excessive glucocorticoid exposure, nutritional deficiency and aberration in sex hormone levels. As a neurotrophic hormone that is intimately involved in the cardiovascular regulation and whose levels are influenced by glucocorticoids, nutritional status and sex hormones, leptin has emerged as a putative etiologic and thus a therapeutic agent...

AIM: All women delivering a preterm infant should receive antenatal corticosteroid prophylaxis, but many miss this opportunity. We determined the risk factors associated with missed prophylaxis in a geographically defined area of Italy. METHODS: We prospectively studied all mothers who delivered babies between 24 and 31 completed weeks of gestation, from 2009 to 2013, in all maternity units in Tuscany. RESULTS: Of 1232 mothers, 186 (15.1%) did not receive prophylaxis...

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No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

No abstract text is available yet for this article.

BACKGROUND: Neurotrophins are proteins critically involved in neural growth, survival and differentiation, and therefore important for fetal brain development. Reduced cord blood neurotrophins have been observed in very preterm infants (<32weeks gestation) who subsequently develop brain injury. Antenatal steroid exposure can alter neurotrophin concentrations, yet studies to date have not examined whether this occurs in the late preterm infant (33-36weeks gestation), despite increasing recognition of subtle neurodevelopmental deficits in this population...

BACKGROUND: Extreme preterm infants have a high risk of morbidity and mortality. Newborns delivered between 23+0 and 25+6 weeks, are considered to be in the "gray zone" and have uncertain prognosis. For these children medical decision-making becomes complex and controversial. The present study intends to evaluate the neonatal morbidity and mortality of preterm infants born between 23 weeks and 25+6 weeks of gestational age. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted including all inborn preterm infants, with a gestational age between 23+0 and 25+6 weeks, admitted to a level IIIC NICU, between 1st January, 1996 and 31th December, 2014...

The practice of antenatal corticosteroid administration in pregnancies of 24-34 weeks of gestation that are at risk of preterm delivery was adopted over 20 years after the first randomized clinical trial in humans. It is biologically plausible that antenatal corticosteroid in pregnancies beyond 34 weeks of gestation would reduce rates of respiratory morbidity and neonatal intensive care admission. Mostly guided by the results of a large multicenter randomized trial of antenatal corticosteroid in late preterm infants, the Antenatal Late Preterm Steroids Trial, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has released a practice advisory that the "administration of betamethasone may be considered in women with a singleton pregnancy between 34 0/7 and 36 6/7 weeks of gestation at imminent risk of preterm birth within 7 days...

AIM: Cranial ultrasound is seldom used in middle-income countries, and the burden of preterm brain injury and its relationship to perinatal data is unknown. We assessed cranial ultrasound abnormalities in very low-birthweight (VLBW) infants and correlated the findings with perinatal data. METHODS: VLBW Armenian infants receiving neonatal intensive care in 2012 were scanned from birth to term-equivalent age (TEA). Clinical data were collected prospectively. RESULTS: We studied 100 VLBW infants with a median gestation of 30 weeks...