Objective: To explore birth rate, delivery mode, medical problems, requirement of respiratory support, and acute outcomes of late preterm infants in Zhejiang province in eastern China.
Methods: Eleven tertiary hospitals were recruited. Clinical data of every nursery admission from January to December 2007 were collected and analyzed.
Results: During the study period, 44,362 infants were born with an overall preterm birth rate of 8.9%, and late preterm birth rate of 6.2%. Late preterm infants had higher cesarean section rate than the whole population (64.9% vs. 58.2%). One-fifth of the nursery admissions were late preterm infants, of whom, 63.8% were delivered by cesarean section. Respiratory distress (42.1%) was the most common medical problem of late preterm infants. Hyperbilirubinemia (17.6%), hypoglycemia (8.7%) and sepsis (5.9%) were also common. The first three primary diagnoses of respiratory distress included pneumonia (39.5%), transient tachypnea of newborn (TTN) (22.5%) and respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) (19.0%). Compared with term infants, late preterm infants with respiratory distress needed more respiratory support with nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) (21.4% vs. 11.6%) or with a mechanical ventilator (15.4% vs. 11.0%), and also had higher in-hospital mortality (0.8% vs. 0.4%).
Conclusions: Late preterm infants are associated with very high cesarean section rate and have more medical problems and poorer short-term outcomes than term infants in China.