“Most of those kids have severe lung problems. A good many are permanently damaged. “
I would hope that has medicine and technology improves, in the future this too won’t be a problem.
My wife has been managing kids like this for two decades as an advanced practice NICU nurse. Over that time, the threshold of maturity necessary for survival has dropped by about a week and generally speaking, the prognosis over a lifetime has become worse. A very few do well.
Most of these kids are conceived to women with serious problems (drugs and such). The vast majority are on public assistance. The cost is well over a million, each. Instead of focusing resources on attaining a lower gestational threshold, we'd help more kids live better lives with less money if we focused upon better prenatal care.
Sadly not the case.