A baby is classified as being premature if they are born any time prior to 37 weeks. Even though a few weeks may not seem like a tremendously long time when compared to the 40 week total, but there is still a great deal of crucial final development that occurs in certain organ systems such as the brain, lungs, and liver. Some of these babies are required to receive intense special care and can spend weeks/months in a neonatal intensive care unit. The earlier a child is born, the more likely they are to have severe health problems such as intellectual disabilities, Cerebral Palsy, breathing/respiratory problems, visual problems including retinopathy of prematurity, hearing loss, and feeding and digestive problems.
In 2011, the national preterm birth rate was 11.7% which was a decline for the 5th straight year in a row in the U.S. The March of Dimes is an organization devoted to fighting this global issue and has established a goal of lowering the national preterm birth rate to 9.6% by the year 2020. This is because while a decrease is always progress in the right directions, the U.S. is still far behind other countries ranking 131 out of 184. Obviously there are times that a woman can do everything right during pregnancy and things can still. For example, one of the largest risk factors doctors look at is if the woman has had a previous preterm birth. In those cases, they will take extra precautions to help ensure the pregnancy can get to or as close to full term as possible. Another risk factor with an unknown original is for African American woman. For some reason, they are about 50% more likely to give birth prematurely. There are of course risk factors that we are aware of that woman can avoid or at least be very cautious of such as carrying multiples, existing problems with the uterus or cervix, chronic health problems in the mother, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and clotting disorders, acquiring certain infections during pregnancy, and of course cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and/or illicit drug use during pregnancy.
One group that I want to address due to the automatic increases they give themselves and their child by mere age alone is teenagers under the age of 18. The rate at which teens are having babies in the U.S. has steadily rose until 2007 and at that point, has luckily began to show a slow, but steady decrease. As a matter of fact, in 2012, the teenage pregnancy rate in the U.S. reached an all-time low of about 83 births for every 1000 for women age 15-29 which is the lowest since the 1940's, but we still cannot afford to ignore the fact that when teenagers decide to become parents, they are creating numerous obstacles for themselves, their future, and their child. We also cannot ignore how substantial their risk is for having a premature birth and in turn further increasing their overall burden. Not to mention that 1 out of every 4 teen girls who have a baby before the age of 18, will have a second child within 2 years.
Teenagers tend to live an unhealthy lifestyle for the most part just due to lack of education and/or lack of good choices. One would like to believe that when a baby is introduced into the picture, it would increase the likelihood they would change their habits, but most often this is not the case. Many young people develop habits of eating unhealthy foods, smoking, drinking alcohol, and using illegal/prescription drugs. They don't understand the value of adequate sleep, a balanced diet, exercise, and drinking plenty of water before, during, and after pregnancy. Clearly another major issue is lack of prenatal care received either due to not having access or simply not seeking it out because they don't feel it is necessary. Teen girls are also notorious for hiding their pregnancies or simply don't know they are pregnant until late in their pregnancy which again leads to issues with lack of prenatal care, poor nutrition, and inability to take the proper vitamins. All of these things create a high risk environment for the baby to not only be premature, but also have serious health risk that can last into adolescents if not beyond.
Another huge risk for teens is STD's (Sexually Transmitted Diseases). Again, due to lack of education and lack of good choices, more than 9 million young people (age 15-24) are infected with an STD every year. A mother giving birth while having an untreated STD, again will increase the risk of creating healthy issues for their child as well as possibly damaging their own health. For example, Chlamydia can cause sterility in the infected individual as well as eye infections and pneumonia in a newborn, Syphilis can cause blindness, maternal death, and infant death and HIV can be passed to a newborn during pregnancy. However, treatment during pregnancy greatly reduces the chances of an infected mother passing HIV on to her baby.
Due to the overwhelming struggles that teenagers can create for themselves and their child because of age, choices, and/or lifestyle, it is naturally recommended and strongly urged that women delay childbearing until their early 20's. However, for any woman that becomes pregnant, regardless of age, there are certain precautions and choices they can take part in to help safeguard themselves and their baby. Most importantly is to ensure they eat healthy foods, stay at a healthy weight themselves, get plenty of sleep, avoid standing for long periods of time as well as heavy lifting, stop taking any illegal drugs, drinking, and smoking, and of course avoid as much stress as possible. Pregnant women need to ensure they take a multivitamin containing folic acid every day to reduce the risk of having a baby with birth defects of the brain and spinal cord. All expectant mothers need to seek out prenatal care early on and continue it throughout the birth of their baby.
My preemie babies are now 14 and 12 and I thank God every day that they grew up with mild issues compared to most. While my oldest was not born prematurely, he did have an extremely difficult labor causing him to get a major infection and in turn stay in the hospital for a week. I tried as hard as possible to eat the right foods, I exercised before and during my pregnancy, and didn't smoke, do drugs, or drink alcohol. However, even trying to do everything right, for some reason it seemed that delivering babies without complication or carrying them full term was not something my body could handle. While we did lose our sweet Kylee and miss her deeply every day, I am thankful that my situation allows me to help educate others on this issue.
Every woman and man who is expecting a child always wants to assume that everything will go wonderfully, there will be no complications, and God forbid, that no hard decisions will have to be made. Unfortunately that is not our reality because as I stated, even in the best circumstances, things can go wrong, things do go wrong, but hat doesn't mean every precaution can't be taken to increase the chances of having a healthy, happy baby.
For more information about premature births and the precautions you can take, you can visit the March of Dimes website. Also November 17th is "World Prematurity Day" and everyone is encouraged to wear purple in honor of Tiny Treasures everywhere that we have lost, ones currently fighting, and the ones who will be fighting in the future!!!
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