Re: The dangers of prenatal steroids
From: Raymond Stephen (Stephen.Raymond@dhhs.tas.gov.au)
Thu Dec 27 16:25:58 2007
You need to look at the ACTOIDS Trial before you go gaga over this
review, which is 6 years old!
Steve
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From: ob-gyn-l@obgyn.net [mailto:ob-gyn-l@obgyn.net] On Behalf Of
--
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GIN11153@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, 25 December 2007 7:47 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list OB-GYN-L
Subject: The dangers of prenatal steroids
http://www.narof.org/docs/steroids.htm
Preemies on Steroids: A New Iatrogenic Disaster? by Helen Harrison
Published in Birth March 2001, Vol.28, No. 1, pp.57-59.
At the Hot Topics in Neonatology conference last December, Dr. Barbara
Schmidt referred to the year 2000 as "Annus Terribilis" for her
profession.1 Large studies from the NICHD2 in the US and the EPICure
group3 in the UK had revealed unexpectedly grim outcome statistics for
extremely low birthweight and short gestation babies -- a 50% rate of
disability serious enough to be diagnosed by two to three years of age .
Because follow up at such early ages reveals only a fraction of the
impairments diagnosed by mid to late childhood,4 the eventual toll in
disability promises to be considerably higher.3 Premature birth, it was
also reported, permanently disorganizes and reduces the size of the
brain, adversely affecting cognition and behavior.5, 6 The more
premature the infant, the smaller and more abnormal the brain.5 Adult
cardiovascular disease, underdeveloped kidneys and diabetes were further
linked to low birth weight. 7 It had become increasingly apparent that
improved survival among extremely preterm infants was producing greater
numbers of children with permanent health impairments and handicaps.8
Further, some of this disability was linked to iatrogenic causes,2 a
result of the continued haphazard use of poorly evaluated therapies in
perinatal and neonatal care. 9, 10
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