Team News Riveting
Where Are the Preemies? Doctors across the world are wondering!
Hospitals in several countries had recorded dips in premature births, bestowing researchers to start studying the cause.
Count this one as a positive side-effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors in countries including Denmark, Ireland, Australia, the U.S. and Canada had reported that fewer preterm babies were born during the period.
A preliminary report suggested that the drop is somewhere 42 percent across the globe.
“It’s actually not that common to see this drop down in the numbers in many countries,” said a senior doctor in Calgary, studying the possible phenomenon in the country.
According to World Health Organisation, every year about 15 million babies are born prematurely around the world and that is more than one in 10 of all babies born globally. Almost 1 million children die each year due to complications of preterm birth (2013).
Across 184 countries, the rate of preterm birth ranges from 5% to 18% of babies born. In India, out of 27 million babies born every year (2010 data), 3.5 million babies born are premature.
Preterm birth (premature birth) is a significant public health problem across the world because of associated neonatal (first 28 days of life) mortality and short- and long-term morbidity and disability in later life. Preterm is defined by World Health Organization (WHO) as babies born alive before 37 completed weeks of gestation or fewer than 259 days of gestation since the first day of a woman’s last menstrual period (LMP). Normally, a pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks.
