RESUMO
Objective: To determine the morbidity, mortality and outcome for VLBW <1500 grams Kuwaiti infants admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, at Ahmadi Hospital, Kuwait Oil Company, Kuwait. Study Design: It is a retrospective record review of all inborn Kuwaiti neonates with birth weight <1500 grams between December 1999 and November 2009. Results: One hundred sixty six VLBW infants were included in the study. Eighty-two percent of them were born before 32 weeks and 67.5% were less than 1000 grams. Survival rate was 87.3%. More boys died than girls and 90% of those who died were born before 32 weeks of gestation and < 1000 grams. Respiratory distress syndrome was the commonest morbidity and affected 64.5% of the infants and was more common in boys than girls. During hospital stay other common morbidities were diagnosed and included hyperbilirubinemia, chronic lung disease, patent ductusarteriosus, intra-ventricular hemorrhage, necrotizing enterocolitis, retinopathy of prematurity, and sepsis. During a 2-year follow up period 27.1%, 13.8%, and 11.4% of our survivors suffered from wheezy chest, gastro-esophageal reflux disease GERD, and cerebral palsy respectively. Our survivors, in spite of their catch up growth during infancy, continued to lag in their physical growth at 2 years of corrected age compared to normal birth weight full term infants.Conclusion: We conclude that inspite of the accepted rate of survival among this high risk population, still the incidence of morbidities remains unchanged over the past 2 decades which requires determining, disseminating, and applying best practices using therapies currently available, and also identifying new strategies and interventions