What is it about?
Neonatal mortality continues to be a significant public health burden in Romania. Over the last two decades, Romania has struggled to implement and expand interventions targeting the important causes of neonatal death: dissemination of perinatal technology and expertise, increased use of antenatal corticosteroids, increased use of antenatal antibiotics, early administration of surfactant to qualifying neonates, and perinatal regionalization within geographic regions as a way to maximize access to and capacities of neonatal intensive care units.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
As in other Eastern European countries, this topic has not been well studied in Romania due to a lack of available data. Up to date estimates of infant’s survival after extreme prematurity became important for assessing perinatal care centers and for clinical guidelines and parental counseling.
Perspectives
Overall, one of four mothers delivering extremely preterm infants in Level III centers was transferred there for delivery and one of five infants born between 25 and 28 weeks of gestation was transferred postnatally in these specialized units. But the truth is that we do not know the true number of infants born before 28 weeks of gestation at Level I and II hospitals and who are too ill to be transferred or who died before the decision to be transferred was made. It is possible that those who were transferred were the infants hardy enough to survive until transport could be accomplished. In this light, our study may be helpful, first, for Romanian obstetricians, neonatologists, national health care bodies, and, second, for interested readers from abroad.
Dr Laura Mihaela Suciu
University of Medicine and Pharmacy Tirgu Mures
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Mortality and morbidity of very preterm infants in Romania: How are we doing?, Pediatrics International, January 2014, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/ped.12219.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
