Bronchopulmonary dysplasia is among the most common complications of prematurely born infants and its incidence has grown as the survival of extremely premature infants has increased.
Atopic eczema in infants has increased in western societies.
However, in the last 3 decades, the overall proportion of women delivering macrosomic infants has increased in many countries [ 18- 22].
Over the past decade, the number of infants born to HIV-infected mothers (i.e. HIV-exposed infants) has increased from 56 in 1991 to 138 in 2001[ 5].
With socio-economic development, progress in modern medicine, and improvements in the treatment of high-risk infants, the incidence of premature and LBW infants has increased.
Universal infant vaccination against HBV is now recommended, and over the past decade three-dose coverage of infants has increased greatly across low and middle income countries.
The survival rate of LBW infants has increased with improvements in perinatal care, which has enabled more opportunities to undergo surgical procedures, and anesthesiologists must provide sensible anesthesia to these infants [ 6].
Focus on early testing "The percentage of women in lower- and middle-income countries who're able to access prevention treatment for their infants has increased from 9 per cent in 2004 to 33 per cent in 2007, which is dramatic," said Mr. Kolker.
Although survival of preterm infants has increased significantly in the past decade, these infants remain at higher risks of long-term motor and cognitive impairments as well as of chronic disease and mortality later in life than infants born at term [ 3, 4].
Temporal trends in fetal growth show that the birth weight of term infants has increased over the last two decades of the previous century (Kramer et al, 2002), attributed primarily to rising maternal pre-pregnancy BMI, greater gestational weight gain and more prevalent gestational diabetes.
