- Swedish researchers assessed more than 2.6 million people for the latest study
- Those born before 28 weeks were 17 times more likely to develop heart failure
- While being born before 31 weeks was linked to a three-fold risk, they discovered
- Experts believe that it is because their bodies don’t develop as they should do
Stephen Matthews For Mailonline
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Premature babies face a greater risk of dying from heart failure, a major new study suggests.
Infants born before the 28th week of pregnancy are 17 times more likely to develop the condition than those carried to full-term.
While those who entered the world before 31 weeks, where survival is around the 95 per cent mark, were at triple the risk, scientists found.
Swedish researchers say it’s because premature babies are exposed to life outside the womb at a time when their organs are not fully ready.
Infants born before the 28th week of pregnancy are 17 times more likely to develop heart failure than those carried to full-term
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This means their body isn’t fully prepared for the radical transition to the real world, affecting their cardiovascular development.
More than 2.6 million individuals born between 1987 and 2012 were assessed by the team at the Karolinska Institutet.
They looked into the rates of heart failure during childhood and adolescence – which is attracting increasing scientific attention.
Some health organisations across the world already recognise it as a risk in some babies born early who have a specific defect.
But the new findings show it to be a problem for all premature infants and back-up a host of evidence which indicate those born early are at higher risk of hypertension, stroke and heart disease.
The results also corroborate earlier studies indicating abnormal development of the cardiovascular system in people born prematurely.
Lead author Hanna Carr, a doctoral student, said: ‘We found that the risk of heart failure was higher for individuals born preterm.’
This was associated with the duration of pregnancy, meaning the earlier someone was born, the greater the risk.
However, the actual risk of either children or young adults developing heart failure is still very rare.
But writing in the The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, they said the risk may still persist when they grow older.
Caroline Lee-Davey, chief executive of Bliss, said the charity ‘welcomes any research which adds to medical knowledge about how best to improve the lives of babies born premature or sick’.
She added: ‘While we know that some babies born premature will have ongoing health needs – and that this is more likely the earlier a baby is born – it is also important to remember that babies born premature are not all the same and develop in different ways.
‘Significantly, this research itself points out that heart failure is very rare in children and young adults, so the risk of developing the condition at a young age is very small, even for people born prematurely.’
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