Male preemies in more danger than females
Filed under: Premature babies — Alan @ 9:18 am
In the case of premature births in which children are born before the mother reaches the 37th week, newborn girls have a better chance of survival and less defects than newborn boys.
In a dissertation at Sweden’s Lund University, Emma Elsmen Steen explored why male babies have a higher risk factor for death than their female counterparts.
There are many complications present in preterm birth including brain haemorrhaging, low blood pressure, cognitive handicaps, and lung immaturity. The more premature a child is born, the higher the risks, especially before the 28th week of pregnancy.
Steen stated in her dissertation that it is a well known fact that boys are a higher risk than girls which is something she wanted to explore to see the development process in the womb.
To complete her study Steen researched over 200 premature births finding that boys were in fact often prone to more complications during the initial period following birth. She found that often boys had lower blood pressure and were more likely to have chronic lung disease.
In another study males were found to have a greater risk of pregnancy toxaemia, infection, loss of amniotic fluid or excessive amniotic fluid.
Steen proposed that in the same way that preeclampsia affects mothers with girl foetuses early in pregnancy, there may be another disease that is not yet identified that primarily affects mothers with boy foetuses causing the premature birthing problems.
Ultimately, Steen drew the conclusion that premature boys face a higher morbidity rate because they mature later in the foetus lifespan than females.
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