Pattern of growth and development of premature children at the age of two and three years in Alexandria Egypt (Part II).

A case-control study was conducted in Alexandria on 68 premature children: 32 of them at the age of 2 and 36 at the age of three years. The aim was to depict the pattern of growth and development among them. Controls were full-term children who were double the number of prematures and matched by age and sex. It was found that the growth pattern of full-term children aged two and three years was better than that of prematures. Moreover prematures were significantly delayed in some developmental areas as language fine motoradaptive sectors and personal-social domains than their corresponding controls. The study suggests that the provision of quality medical care could eliminate the growth and developmental lag of premature children. (author’s)