Educational outcomes following preterm birth
1. Health and development in the preschool years
On average, children who were born preterm are more likely to have delayed development than children who were born at term. The more preterm a baby is born, the greater the risk they will have difficulties in the preschool years. This can include delayed cognitive, language, motor, social and emotional development. This means that preterm born children may take longer to meet developmental milestones than children born at term, and are more likely to have difficulties with learning, playing and communicating with others, picking up and handling objects, and walking or crawling.
Children born preterm are also more likely to have health related problems than children who were born at term. Breathing difficulties, feeding problems and infections are especially common in the preschool years. Preterm born children are particularly vulnerable to infections in the lungs (such as pneumonia) and in the nose, throat and sinuses (such as colds), and are more likely to be admitted to hospital for these problems than children who were born at term. Preterm born children are also more likely to have difficulties with their vision and may need to wear glasses.
Although most preterm born children won’t have significant health or developmental difficulties, it is important for preschool professionals to be aware of these so that they are ready to support those children who may need it.
Click the speech bubble on the graph to find out more about developmental delay in the preschool years.
Source View Graph & Transcript
Kerstjens, J.M et al. (2011). Developmental Delay in Moderately Preterm-Born Children at School Entry. The Journal of Pediatrics. 159(1), 92-8. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2010.12.041
This graph shows the results of a study carried out in the Netherlands. The study explored the rates of developmental delay in preschool children, measured using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire completed by parents when the children were 4 years of age.
The x axis, along the bottom of the graph, shows the 5 areas of development that were assessed. For each area of development, the graph shows the results for children who were born at full term, shown in the dark grey bars, moderately or late preterm, shown in the light grey bars, and very preterm, shown in the blue bars.
The y axis, on the left-hand side of the graph, shows the percentage of children in each group that had developmental delay. The higher the bars on the graph, the higher the proportion of children with developmental delay.
Looking across the graph as a whole, you can see that the proportion of children with developmental delay was highest among those born very preterm, before 32 weeks of gestation. This was the same for every area of development that was assessed. Moderately and late preterm children, born at 32 to 36 weeks of gestation, had higher rates of developmental delay than children born at full term in every area of development, but this was not as high as for children born very preterm.
For example, looking at the bars on the left, you can see that 3.5% of full term children had delayed fine motor development, compared with 8% of children born late and moderately preterm, and 12% of children born very preterm. The same pattern of results was found across all five areas of development that were assessed.
In summary, this graph shows that, on average, the earlier a baby is born the greater the risk she or he will have developmental delay in the preschool years, and this is evident in all areas of development