Those kids who were born before the due date, as a rule, have some features, and naturally differ from their peers at birth. In the future, the development of a premature baby falls slightly behind the one born in time by months.
Features of nutrition
As a rule, a premature baby grows much faster than its peers, who were born according to the deadline. This rule takes place only in those cases when prematurity is small, and the child is born not earlier than 32 weeks.
With deep prematurity, in those cases when the baby is on the hardware nursing and placed in kuvez, its development occurs at a very different rate. In such a situation, weight gain and growth is small because these kids lose weight initially and sometimes can not absorb food at once.
Another complication, which directly affects the growth and weight of the newborn, is the process of nutrition itself. When the prematurity is small, the children themselves are able to suckle or breastfeed. When a child is born with a large prematurity, there is a need for food through the probe, and sometimes parenterally. As these suckers develop a sucking reflex, they are transferred to regular feeding with breast milk or an adaptive milk formula.
Features of development
As a rule, children are doubling their weight by the 2-3 months of their life, by 6 months - tripling, and by 1 year - the weight increases 4-8 times. In this case, there is a regularity: the less weight was at birth, the more significant will be observed monthly addition. But this does not mean that a child who at birth weighs slightly more than 1 kg, by the year will weigh the same as the one who had a mass of 3.5 kg at birth. For a premature baby, the weight of 7-8 kg per year of life is excellent.
There is even a certain table of the weight of premature babies, according to which the dynamics of weight gain is as follows:
- 1 month - 500-700 g;
- 2 months - 400-800 g;
- 3 months - 500-700 g;
- 4 months - 500-800 g;
- 5 month - 500-700 g;
- 6 month - 500-600 g.
Further increase in body weight occurs in the same way as in children who were born on time. By the year, the weight gain in premature infants is 5500-7500 g.
The growth of the premature baby depends entirely on how he adds weight. The first months, until about the 6th, the growth increases quite quickly, and can be up to +6 cm monthly. By the year this indicator is usually 25-38 cm, and on average the growth of the premature baby is 70-80 cm per year. During the second year of life, the increase in growth occurs not so intensely, and it increases only by 1-2 cm per month.
In addition to increasing growth and body weight, the circumference of the body also increases. Particular attention should be paid to the circumference of the head, so as not to miss the development of pathology. The volume of the head in the first six months of life exceeds the volume of the newborn's breast and increases monthly by 1 cm. For six months, the growth is 12 cm.
Also one more feature in the development of premature babies is that the timing of the eruption of the first teeth is significantly shifted. Their first occurrence is calculated by the term of gestation. For example, if the baby was born after 35 weeks of pregnancy, the appearance of the first teeth should be expected at 7-8 months of life. If the baby was born in the interval of 30-34 weeks, the first teeth will appear not earlier than 9 months. At a deep prematurity (a birth of the child earlier 30 weeks of pregnancy) a teeth appear already after 10-12 monthly age.