Originally Posted by Comrade Ogilvy

Hmmmm...my youngest son was a premmie... almost died in 1979..he graduated from MSU with a teaching degree and now makes big bucks in Japan ...Oh well!

Originally Posted by 1069

My younger son was nearly as premature as your daughter. He almost died a couple of times during his first year; had to have some surgery.
Once, just when I thought we were out of the woods medically speaking, I found him blue in his crib. He was in the PediICU for two weeks that time, while they tried to ascertain whether there was brain damage, and what the extent of it was.
Turned out, there was none. It was a miracle; I had discovered him almost immediately, apparently, after he stopped breathing. A commonplace, mundane miracle, as it turned out: one of the doctors at the hospital told me that this is common. Mothers will often sense that their babies have stopped breathing, even if they're in another room, and find them in time.
He had to be on an apnea monitor for awhile after that, but it never happened again.
By the time he was eighteen months, he was healthy; developmentally, he was on par. He never had another health problem in his life to date.
When he was six- like your daughter- I believed, like you, that he had no lasting effects.
I was correct only from a technical standpoint; nothing medically diagnosable was wrong with him.
I have an older son, too, who was born at term.
I see the difference every day of my life.

I don't know who you are, and don't care whether my words offend you.
Protecting the sensibilities of strangers is not one of my priorities.
If my words scare you, I'm sorry you're scared.
If they don't, I'm glad they don't. You're lucky if your daughter is unscathed, although I suspect it's too soon to know.

Somewhere in all this, there's a syndrome that hasn't been named yet; these children need services. What these services would consist of, I cannot imagine. I only know that they need them. Some form of early intervention.
It seems to me- and this is only the wild, instinctive guess of an uneducated person- that the problem might be with their nervous systems. Some problem so subtle that current technology can not yet detected it.

Originally Posted by aps

Hmmm, I didn't see where the study said that all premature babies would suffer from a disability. Oh well!

Originally Posted by DarkWizard12

So, you admit, some pre-ma babies are worth having lives then. I wonder how people get off judging which unborn babies are worth having lives.

Originally Posted by Trinity

Remember that friend I told u guys who is very knowledgeable, creative and intelligent? He was born a premmie, 6 weeks premature b4 his due date. No health problems whatsoever, except he has allergies and has bad cases of sinus infections.

He is 38, 5'9", built like a gorilla. What else? He told me he spent some 100K on weed alone, so u can imagine how much he actually earns Oh and he has 2 kids, both very healthy as well. Very gregarious personality and extremely well-liked and sociable. He is literally the life of all parties. Unsociable? Hah! No way, not by a lonnnngggg shot

My nephew is also another premmie, born 4 weeks premature. Intelligent and quite a genius for his age (he is 10 now). Other than being susceptible to flu and colds, no other health problems. Gregarious too. He tells his other aunt... (my sister) "U don't have a life... I have a life... I play Halo 3" [Is this how kids identify themselves these days?] (btw my sister is a financial manager.) He has great grades in school as well, bilingual in both English and Chinese.

So I think the premature ppl or who have premmie kids, can take heart that they will be ok

One thing to note, I think the premmies r very dynamic personality ppl who r very action-orientated. That's why they were in such a hurry to get out of their moms to get into the world U get exhausted just hearing what they did everyday

Originally Posted by aps

That's great. I don't understand why certain people are taking this study so personally that they feel they feel the need to disprove it. Some of the findings show that a premature baby is "more likely" to develop a disability. More likely usually equates to 51 or more percent. So then the chances of a premature baby not having or developing a disability would be 49% or less. So if we believe that the study shows 51% will develop a disability and 49% do not, why are people inferring that the study says essentially that almost all premature babies will develop a disability???

Originally Posted by WI Crippler

Its not the propensity for actual disability that is offensive, that makes sense. Its the idea that ones that don't develop a physical disability are more likely to be less educated and other nonsense that has nothing to do with premature birth. Its an excuse used for failure, and people are willing to buy into it. What if I said, people that are born black are more likely to commit crime? I could find statistics to back that up I am sure. But is it because they have some genetic predisposition towards crime, or is it a social issue that has to do with the cultural influences? I would say that out of these 10-20% of premies that do not achieve and end up on early social security, that cultural factors involving their parents may have an influence on that. I mean out of all the premies born, what percentage of them are born to people that aren't well off, or that are drug users/smokers? I would guess that it could be 10%. Sure premies are born to healthy families to, but lets not assume that just because somebody is born a premie, that they are more predestined for failure than others, so long as they developed no physical disability. To believe that is a disservice to them, just as it would be a disservice to assume black children are pre destined for crime because of the skin color they were born with. That is whats offensive.