Early onset neonatal problems of late preterm infants that require hospitalization to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Objective: Prematurity is one of the major reasons of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Late preterm birth is defined as birth at 34 (0/7) and 36 (6/7) weeks of gestation starting from the first day of the mother’s last menstrual period. Though late preterm infants are not evaluated in the high-risk categories, they result in short-, and long-term risks of morbidity, and mortality which cause critical social burden. In this study, we examined early onset problems of 150 late preterm newborns that were born at İzmir Tepecik Education And Research Hospital, and treated at the 2nd stage newborn intensive care unit. Methods: 150 late preterm infants that were born in our hospital between November 2012 and November 2013 and treated at the 2nd stage neonatal intensive care unit were included in the study. Maternal risk factors of patients, indications, and durations of hospitalizations, and problems encountered during hospitalization were recorded and the results were statistically evaluated. Results: The mean gestational age at birth was 35,17±0,79 weeks. The patient population consisted of 64 (42.7%) female, and 86 (57.3%) male infants. Indications of hospitalizations were respiratory distress (n=115; 76.7%), feeding intolerance (n=8; 5.3%), and neonatal infections (n=8; 5.3%), and the remaining indications were hypogycemia, congenital anomalies, hyperbilirubinemia, and asphyxia. The major maternal risk factors were preeclampsia (n=14; 9.3%) and maternal diabetes (10 patients, 6.7%). Early (n=13;8.7%), and late (n=14; 9.3%) onset sepsis have been detected, and 66 (44%) patients required phototherapy, and apnea was diagnosed amongt 5 (3.3%) patients during hospitalization. Conclusion: Findings of the study have revealed that late preterm infants often need hospitalization in newborn intensive care units as having respiratory distress, feeding intolerance and newborn jaundice indications. The findings of this study provide data supporting the previous findings of the relevant literature. Results suggest that neonatal intensive care units tend be engaged more in such cases due to the increase in the rate of early preterm births.