Preemies' Problems May Last a Lifetime

I am a 40 year old mother who gave birth to 4 premature babies. One at 34weeks, one at 26 weeks and two at 32 weeks. My oldest son(34 wks) is now a sophomore at KU with excellent grades. He has had no problems except at birth, with maturing his lungs and learning to eat and breath at the same time. Son #2 and daughter # 3, a senior in high school and 7th grader. Both of them are honor students in advance placement classes. They both went thru the same issues my older son did at birth and none of them stayed in the hospital longer than a week. My oldest daughter, however, born @26 weeks does have Quadraplegic Cerebral Palsy. She stayed in hospital 3 months mainly at the time because she was so small. The CP diagnoses didn't come until she was about 6 months old. Needless to say notALL preemies have lifetime issues but some do. I have yet to be told why all my babies were early. I have never drank, smoked or lived a lifestyle harmful to pregnancy.

Gah, what a misleading title! The article wasn't about the life-long problems preterm babies can have. The only thing the article mentioned specifically was the increased risk for cerebral palsy, and since preterm birth IS one of the highest risk factors for CP, it's like "DUH!"