Birth

Early term birth-compared to term delivery-is associated with increased rate of perinatal complications. The authors evaluated the short term prognosis of infants delivered at 37 weeks gestation compared to term neonates using a retrospective case control study, controlling also the birth weight. SPSS 10.0 for Windows was used for statistical analysis. The study included 343 delivered at 37 weeks gestation and 343 term infants. Early term infants had lower Apgar scores at 1 and 5 minutes (p=0.000, p=0.006), increased rates of respiratory distress (9.9% vs. 0%, OR 2.11[CI 1.94-2.39]), persistent pulmonary hypertension (23.7% vs. 4%, p=0.003, OR 7.45[CI1.64-23.72]), jaundice (47.5% vs. 22.2%, p=0.000, OR 3.18[CI2.28-4.43]), anemia (30.7% vs. 15.9%, p=0.014, OR 2.34[CI1.17-4.70], and neonatal intensive care unit admission (10.5% vs. 1.2%, p=0.000, OR 9.94[CI3.49-28.24]). An analysis of the epidemiology of early term birth is mandatory in order to decrease their rate and better neonatal prognosis. INTRODUCTION The definition of term newborn has been recently changed in order to more accurately underline that between 37 0/7 and 41 6/7 weeks gestation the neonatal prognosis is not uniform and differs for every week of gestation. Therefore we are speaking now about early term infants if they are born at 37 0/7-38 6/7 weeks, full term infants if delivery occurs at 39 0/7-40 6/7 weeks, late term infants if birth takes place between 41 0/7-41 6/7 weeks, and postterm if they are delivered at 42 or after 42 weeks of gestation.(1) The best neonatal outcome is registered if delivery occurs at 39-40 weeks gestation.(1,2) Early term delivery rate is increased worldwide and in Romania in the latest years due to multiple factors including increased maternal age and more complicated pregnancies, increased number of multiple pregnancies, improved pregnancy management, and increased number of deliveries induced for maternal and fetal medical complications, gestational age estimation errors, demographic changes etc. Early term birth-compared to term delivery-is associated with increased rate of perinatal complications as revealed by data published in the literature. Research published in the recent years is revealing that every week of gestation is important for the neonatal health since maturation of the brain and lung occurs during the last weeks before the 40 th week of gestation.(1) The first studies regarding early term birth focused on the presence of labor and delivery mode, less on the neonatal prognosis but recent data are showing that early term delivery is associated with increased risks for the newborn. The study published by Consortium on Safe Labor (3) showed that neonates born at 37 weeks have increased rates of respiratory failure (OR 2.8[2.0-3.9]), respiratory distress syndrome, transient tachypnea of the newborn, pneumonia, and ventilator use compared to infants born at 39 weeks gestation. Increased rates of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) admission were observed also by Sengupta et al. (2) and by Clark et al. (4) at 37 weeks versus 39 weeks deliveries. At 37 weeks gestation, compared to 39 weeks, hypoglycemia, increased need for respiratory support, oxygen, parenteral fluids, low Apgar scores,