Babies born under 1000 g--perinatal outcome.

Improved survival of very pre-term infants is a result of advances in obstetric and neonatal medicine. To provide relevant data for a Northern Ireland population group, we evaluated mortality and morbidity of extremely low birthweight (ELBW; < 1000 g) infants from a tertiary referral neonatal unit. Seventy-seven ELBW infants were admitted on the first day of life during the period April 1990 to April 1992. Mean (SD) gestational age (GA) was 26.2 (2.1) weeks and birthweight (BW) was 781 (132) g. The degree of severity of initial illness was high, with a mean (SD) CRIB (clinical risk index for babies) score of 7.4 (4.2). Fifty (65%) babies survived, being discharged home at a mean (SD) age of 95 (34) days. Survivors were more likely to have received maternal steroid therapy or been born in this hospital. Ten (20%) of the survivors had evidence of severe neonatal brain injury or cranial ultrasonography--Papile grade 3 or 4 intraventricular haemorrhage (IVH) or periventricular leucomalacia (PVL). Survival rate of ELBW infants without severe brain injury was 54% overall; this ranged from 0% in ELBW infants born at 23 weeks GA and 33% at 24 weeks GA to 85% at 27 weeks GA.