Permanent bilateral sensory and neural hearing loss of children after neonatal intensive care because of extreme prematurity: a thirty-year study.

Objective: We present population-based, childhood prevalence rates of and neonatal risk factors for permanent hearing loss among extremely premature infants.

Methods: By using an inception-cohort, longitudinal study design for 1974-2003, we studied permanent hearing loss among 1279 survivors with gestational age of < or =28 weeks and birth weight of <1250 g (mortality rate: 42.7%; lost to follow-up monitoring: 4.