GESTATIONAL-AGE CORRECTION FOR HEIGHT IN PRETERM CHILDREN TO 7 YEARS OF AGE

Correction for gestational age continues to make a difference to the height SD score (SDS) to the age of seven years in very preterm babies. The height SDS for children born at 28 weeks' gestation increased by 0.25 SDS when postconceptual age was used instead of real age. Extrapolating from these results, the effect of correction would be an increase of approximately 0.32 SDS for a seven-year-old of 24 weeks' gestation. Unsatisfactory growth may be masked by a steady or increasing real age SDS in a few children. The risks of stopping using postconceptual age at two or three years include both false confidence in genuine cases of growth retardation and misinterpretation of a decrease in height SDS as evidence of growth retardation. As the number of very preterm babies who survive increases so does the importance of these observations.