More Infant Deaths Found to Be Due to Premature Birth

Scientists now say one-third of infant deaths are because of premature births -- a much larger percentage than previously thought.

In the past, "preterm birth" has been the listed cause of death in fewer than 20 percent of newborn fatalities. But that rate should be 34 percent or more, said researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That's because at least a dozen causes of newborn death are actually problems that go hand-in-hand with premature births, such as respiratory distress syndrome caused by underdeveloped lungs.

"This brings preterm birth, as a cause of death, to the kind of level that we think it deserves," said the CDC's Bill Callaghan, the lead author of a study appearing today in the journal Pediatrics.

The revised statistic might lead to greater efforts to counsel pregnant women about taking care of themselves and avoiding actions that can lead to preterm births -- such as smoking and drug use.

It also may help organizations lobbying for more research into why some women who follow medical advice still have preterm babies. The March of Dimes is advocating to expand federal research into preterm labor and delivery and the care and treatment of premature infants.

"Preterm birth" generally describes infants who are born before 37 weeks gestation, and the term is also used as an official cause of death. Two-thirds of infant deaths occur in children who were preterm, but their cause of death is often attributed to one of the several specific problems that can occur in preterm babies.

Callaghan and other researchers examined birth and death certificates for about 28,000 U.S. infants who died in 2002.

More than 4,600 of those were attributed only to preterm birth. But the researchers also grouped in thousands of other deaths that were attributed to preterm-related conditions, including respiratory distress syndrome, brain hemorrhage and maternal complications such as premature rupture of membranes.