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Long-term digestive hospitalizations of premature infants (besides necrotizing enterocolitis): is there a critical threshold?

  • General Gynecology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Background

In this study we sought to ascertain a critical threshold of the degree of prematurity and long-term digestive morbidity of the offspring.

Methods

A population-based cohort analysis was conducted, comparing long-term incidence of digestive morbidity in infants born preterm. Cases were divided into four groups according to the extremity of prematurity. Digestive morbidity included hospitalizations involving a predefined set of ICD9 codes. A Kaplan–Meier survival curve was constructed to compare cumulative incidence of digestive morbidity. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to control for confounders.

Results

During the study period 220,563 patients met the inclusion criteria. Offspring born preterm had significantly more hospitalizations due to digestive morbidity compared to term offspring. The Kaplan–Meier survival curve demonstrated significant higher cumulative incidence of long-term digestive morbidity of the offspring with decreasing gestational age (Log rank p < 0.001). The risk was highest at 28 weeks gestation. Using a Cox proportional hazards model, being born at very and moderate to late preterm birth was independently associated with long-term digestive morbidity.

Conclusion

Preterm delivery is an independent risk factor for long-term digestive morbidity of the offspring. In our population, 28 weeks gestation is the critical cut-off for pronounced digestive morbidity.

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Funding

This research received no external funding.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health Sciences, Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    Ofir Ohana

  2. Department of Epidemiology and Health Services Evaluation, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    Tamar Wainstock

  3. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Soroka University Medical Center, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    Eyal Sheiner & Gali Pariente

  4. Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tom Leibson

  5. Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tom Leibson

Authors
  1. Ofir Ohana
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  2. Tamar Wainstock
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  3. Eyal Sheiner
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  4. Tom Leibson
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  5. Gali Pariente
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Contributions

OO: Writing original draft, visualization; TW: Formal analysis, conceptualization, development or design of methodology, validation, writing review and editing; ES: Conceptualization, writing review and editing, supervision; TL: Language editing, writing review and editing; GP: Conceptualization, writing review and editing, supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eyal Sheiner.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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This study was conducted as part of the requirements for MD degree from the Goldman Medical School at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

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Ohana, O., Wainstock, T., Sheiner, E. et al. Long-term digestive hospitalizations of premature infants (besides necrotizing enterocolitis): is there a critical threshold?. Arch Gynecol Obstet 304, 455–463 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-06068-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-021-06068-w

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