| Breathing difficulties in premature babies BABIES born before their lungs have fully
developed usually have breathing problems,
sometimes serious ones. Might the chance of
such problems be reduced if a pregnant woman
who's likely to give birth prematurely is given periodic injections with a
corticosteroid?
A study involved 982 pregnant women who were considered to have a good
chance of delivering prematurely. All had received one corticosteroid injection. They then were randomly assigned
to have weekly injections with the corticosteroid
betamethazone or a saline solution ( placebo )
through their 32nd week of pregnancy.
Fewer babies born to women who had the drug
injections had respiratory illnesses (33% vs. 41%) or
severe lung disease ( 12% vs. 20% ). The babies in
each group had about the same number of infections, and their average size when they left the hospital
was nearly identical. There also was little difference between the groups in the average gestational age at birth and the proportion of babies
born prematurely.
Who may be affected by these findings? Women
at risk of delivering at 37 weeks of pregnancy or
earlier. Although any woman can deliver prematurely, this occurs more often in women who have
had a previous preterm birth, who are carrying
multiple foetuses or who have certain uterine or cervical abnormalities.
Caveats: The study followed babies until initial discharge from the
hospital; it did not determine any longer-term effects. Other studies have
reported increased infections at birth and abnormal growth and development
in childhood when mothers had been given prenatal corticosteroids repeatedly. An editorial published with this study advised
that "routine use of multiple courses of antenatal
corticosteroids should be considered with caution
until results from long-term follow-up studies are
known."
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