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Study of the costs and morbidities of late-preterm birth

Anick Bérard1, Magali Le Tiec, Mary A De Vera

  • 1Université de Montréal, CHU Sainte Justine Research Center, 3175, Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3T 1C5. anick.berard@umontreal.ca

Archives of Disease in Childhood. Fetal and Neonatal Edition
|August 31, 2012
PubMed

Insights

Late-preterm infants face higher risks of certain health issues and increased healthcare costs compared to term infants. Costs for late-preterm infants decrease over time but remain elevated.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatrics
  • Neonatal Health
  • Public Health

Background:

  • Late-preterm infants (33-36 weeks gestation) represent a significant proportion of births.
  • Understanding their long-term health outcomes and associated healthcare costs is crucial for resource allocation and care planning.
  • Comparison with full-term infants (≥37 weeks gestation) provides a critical benchmark for assessing risks.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare the incidence of morbidities in late-preterm infants versus term infants during the first three years of life.
  • To evaluate and compare healthcare costs for late-preterm and term infants during the first two years and the third year of life.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized administrative health records from a large cohort (N=35733) of infants born between 1997 and 2000 with three years of follow-up.
  • Employed Cox's proportional hazards models to compare morbidity diagnoses between late-preterm and term infants.
  • Analyzed healthcare costs, including mean total costs and cost ratios, post-initial hospital discharge.

Main Results:

  • Common hospitalizations for both groups included acute bronchitis, otitis media, and pneumonia; physician visits frequently involved upper respiratory infections.
  • Late-preterm infants showed significantly higher hazard ratios for chronic bronchitis (1.64), hearing loss (1.56), and bacterial diseases (1.28).
  • Mean total healthcare costs for late-preterm infants were nearly double those of term infants in the first two years ($2568 vs $1285 CAD), with a cost ratio of 1.99. This ratio decreased to 1.46 in the third year.

Conclusions:

  • Late-preterm infants experience a higher risk of specific morbidities compared to their term-born counterparts.
  • The economic burden associated with late-preterm infants' healthcare is substantial, although it diminishes from nearly double to 46% higher by the third year of life.
Abstract

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