[Medical and psychological status of one-year-old premature babies without severe disability. Case-control prospective study].

Background: This case-control prospective study was conducted to determine whether and how medical, psychological and affective development differs from premature to full-term newborns without severe disability.

Population And Methods: Newborns under or at 33 weeks gestation (W) were included from December 1992 to January 1994 and were matched with two controls. The same examiners evaluated each infant at the effective postnatal age of nine to ten months.

Results: Fifty premature babies (average gestational age [GA] = 30.7 W) were compared to 100 controls. The main problems were bronchopulmonary (P = 0.03) and sleep (P = 0.027) disorders. Motor disability was suspected in 9% of the cases and none control (P = 0.00003, OR = 3.44). By multivariate analysis, cases differed from the controls by infant-mother relation disturbances (OR = 13.3), motherhood anxiety (OR = 13.3), poor expressiveness (OR = 5.6), peripheral tonus anomalies (OR = 39.5) and sleep troubles (OR = 5.8).

Conclusion: Premature newborns had risks for the child-mother relation but not for psychoaffective development disturbances.