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. 2025 Sep 18.
doi: 10.1038/s41372-025-02431-w. Online ahead of print.

Trends of care patterns and outcomes of very low birth weight infants (≤1500 g) born after 27 weeks of gestation in South Wales, UK

Lieve Boel #  1 , Mirain Davies #  2 , Nitin Goel  1 , Ian Paul Morris  1 , Sujoy Banerjee  3 , Vasiliki Makri  3 , Chuen Poon  4 , Anitha James  4 , Mallinath Chakraborty  5   6
Affiliations

Trends of care patterns and outcomes of very low birth weight infants (≤1500 g) born after 27 weeks of gestation in South Wales, UK

Lieve Boel et al. J Perinatol. .

Abstract

Objective: To analyse trends of outcomes of very low birth weight (VLBW) infants born after 27 weeks of gestation over 15 years in South Wales, UK.

Study design: Trends of clinical outcomes were analysed by deriving multivariable logistic regression models and presented as odds ratios (aOR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). A p-value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

Results: Between 2007 and 2021, 2321 infants were included in the cohort. There was a decline in the incidence of mortality (aOR 0.941; 95% CI 0.895, 0.988), severe brain injury (0.937; 0.893, 0.982), necrotising enterocolitis (0.911; 0.862, 0.964) and sepsis (0.949; 0.920, 0.978). At birth, odds of mechanical ventilation (0.909; 0.888, 0.930) & receipt of surfactant (0.920; 0.899, 0.942), and mechanical ventilation after admission (0.940; 0.919, 0.961) were significantly reduced. Analysis of a subgroup of 1797 preterm infants born before 32 weeks suggested significant improvement in all major outcomes studied.

Discussion: Trends of care patterns and outcomes improved over time in this cohort of VLBW infants in South Wales, especially preterm infants below 32 weeks of gestation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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