Prematurity Awareness Month (PAM)- Fact of the Day (FOD) #1

Prematurity Awareness Month
Fact of the Day #1

World Prematurity Day is 11/17.

Q: What are the chances of survival for a baby born at 23 weeks gestation?
A: It depends on the NICU, and in many places around the world, survival is not possible. At hospitals where "23 weekers" are resuscitated, the success rate is between 15 and 40%. This sounds grim, but this is up significantly from a decade ago where the number was closer to 5-20%.  (All the websites I could find in that last week of pregnancy said 20% as the highest number, so I was delighted to find out that at my NICU the success rate was just under 50%.)

Advancements in neonatal care have made this huge gain possible. This is one reason why I've enrolled JAM in any research study offered to us. They all seemed very reasonable, and any chance that HIS life could help bring that percentage up a bit was very worth the extra paper work to me.

Are you doing your own "fact of the day" series for Prematurity Awareness Month?  Use the hashtag #PAMFOD for your twitter reposts. Or send me a link, and I'll post it under my resource pages.