Archives of disease in childhood. Fetal and neonatal edition
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Arch. Dis. Child. Fetal Neonatal Ed. · May 2000
Effects of gestation and birth weight on the growth and development of very low birthweight small for gestational age infants: a matched group comparison.
To investigate the effects of small for gestational age (SGA) in very low birthweight (VLBW) infants on growth and development until the fifth year of life. ⋯ Being underweight and with a short gestation (SGA and VLBW) leads to poor weight gain and head growth in infancy but does not result in poorer growth than in infants of the same birth weight but shorter gestation (AGA-BW) in the long term. SGA is related to early developmental delay and later language problems; however, neonatal complications may have a larger detrimental effect on long term cognitive development of VLBW infants than whether they are born SGA or AGA.