Prognosis after very preterm birth: Insights for the future.

Advances in perinatal medicine in high-income countries have resulted in a significant reduction in mortality for infants born very preterm (<32 weeks gestation), such that most now survive. These results are in line with those from the study by Zayegh et al.1 showing trends in extremely low birthweight outcomes over four decades in Australia were concordant with investigations in later cohorts based on gestational age. Encouragingly, however, once the severity of the very low birth weight or very preterm birth was considered, the use of birthweight or gestational age did not contribute to heterogeneity in the meta-analysis estimates of the cognitive deficit associated with very preterm birth. [Extracted from the article]