[Posture in preterm infants is not a good indicator of brain damage]

The development of posture during the prenatal period was studied longitudinally in 12 matched pairs of low-risk and high-risk preterm infants. The gestational age of the infants in both groups ranged from 28 to 36 weeks. The two members of each pair had the same gestational age at birth and the video recordings were performed at the same postmenstrual age. They were filmed more than three times during the prenatal period, each video recording lasting 1 h. Time of occurrence and duration of each posture were analyzed from replay of the video recordings. No age-specific preference posture described in the literature was found from birth until the term age between two groups. There was no age-related tendency in duration and frequency of postures between two groups. There was a clear-cut dominant head position to the right side from 31 weeks onward. Asymmetrical tonic neck postures (ATN) were very inconsistently present before the term age. And there was no significant difference in the occurrence of ATN postures between two groups. We could not find any specific abnormal postures in the high-risk group. Our study suggested that posture in preterm infants is not a good indicator of brain damage in the prenatal period.