Mary Sullivan, a professor of nursing at the University of Rhode Island, has been leading a long-term study of a group of nearly 200 individuals who were born prematurely and are now in their 20s. She says that several studies, including her own, indicate that premature birth can impact brain development. Babies born prematurely, she found, have a higher rate of learning disabilities when they reach school age, struggle with motor skills and learning math, and rely on more services at school. Other studies have found higher rates of behavioral, emotional, and social problems in kids and young adults who were preemies.
Sullivan’s study has been looking at factors that help former preemies thrive, such as an internal drive to succeed and a nurturing family environment. Sullivan emphasizes that prematurity is a spectrum, and its health effects depend on how early babies are born, their birth weight, and whether they experience illnesses as newborns.
Answering whether prematurity leads to long-term health consequences requires following people over long periods of time; as subjects continue to age, studies like these will yield clearer results. But they have one major drawback: They’re always looking at adults who were born decades ago, and medical care for newborns has improved since then. At the same time, infants are now surviving earlier births, and these extreme preemies may have unique health burdens as adults.
