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Impaired Infants More Inclined To Epilepsy |
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In a recent study, the researchers have found that the infants who have a short gestational age, low birth weight and intrauterine growth restriction, are possible to be in an increased risk of epilepsy in their lives. The researchers of the study have informed that the above-mentioned factors can really hamper the normal growth of the infants. However, some of the previous studies could not be very much sanguine about the relationship between epilepsy and the infants` birth weight or gestational age.
With a view to find out the real relation between the infants` birth weight or gestational age, the researchers in Denmark have recently conducted a study on a number of 1.4 million babies born in Denmark between the years of 1979 and 2002. The researchers continued to follow up the children for a long period of 24 years and identified the Epilepsy cases through the Danish National Hospital Register. They found that among the study participants, a number of 14,334 were hospitalized with epilepsy at some point during the follow-up period. They also found the rate of epilepsy diagnosis to increase constantly with the decline of gestational age and birth weight.
However, the researchers also noticed the association to become weaker as the age at epilepsy diagnosis increased. They observed that epilepsy in the first year of life was over five times more frequent among the infants who had a gestational age of 22-32 weeks at birth. This was found when the researchers compared the infants with those who had a gestational age of 39-41 weeks at birth. At the same time, the occurrence rate was also found to be five times` higher among the children who were having a birth weight of less than 2000 grams in comparison to those who born with a weight of between 3000 and 3900 grams. Thus, depending upon the findings, the researchers came to the conclusion that there is a strong association between the low birth weight and short gestational age with the risk of epilepsy in the first five years of life.
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