Apnea Is Associated with Neurodevelopmental Impairment in Very Low Birth Weight Infants

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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether apnea in preterm infants is associated with abnormal neurodevelopmental outcome. METHODS: We determined the number of days that apnea and bradycardia spells were noted by the nursing staff, during the initial hospitalization of 175 preterm infants of less than ppp=0.004. Lower PDI was associated with increasing apnea days, male sex, and postnatal steroid use, pp<0.05. Caffeine treatment was not independently associated with any outcome. CONCLUSION: An increasing number of days that apnea was recorded during hospitalization was associated with a worse outcome. Among the potential explanations for this finding is the possibility that multiple recurrent hypoxic and bradycardic spells may cause brain injury.