Free Republic

High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries, government researchers reported Tuesday in their first detailed analysis of a longstanding problem. In Sweden, for instance, 6.3 percent of births were premature, compared with 12.4 percent in the United States in 2005, the latest year for which international rankings are available. Infant mortality also... --snip-- Dr. Fleischman said the smallest, earliest and most fragile babies were often born to poor and minority women who lacked health care and social support. The highest rates of infant mortality occur...

WASHINGTON -- More than half a million babies are born prematurely each year, and specialists are urging that doctors take new steps to battle one cause: infertility treatments that spur twins, triplets, and other multiple births. But despite a booming business, infertility treatment explains only a fraction of the nation's huge and growing problem of prematurity. One in eight babies now is born at least three weeks early, many even earlier, a rate that has increased more than 30 percent in two decades. Trying to help these fragile infants survive and thrive costs the nation at least $26 billion a...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Many premature infants appear to play catch-up by early adulthood, reaching levels of education and employment that are similar to those of normal-weight children, a study found.     The mostly reassuring results are the latest installment from Canadian researchers studying the development of 166 premature babies born in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The babies weighed 2 pounds or less. The infants have been tracked from their birth in central-west Ontario into childhood and beyond.     The results contrast with less favorable outcomes in other long-term studies, but the Canadian children had benefits other preemies lacked, noted an...