Romeo, DMM;
Cioni, M;
Scoto, M;
Palermo, F;
Pizzardi, A;
Sorge, A;
Romeo, MG;
(2009)
Development of the forward parachute reaction and the age of walking in near term infants: a longitudinal observational study.
BMC Pediatrics
, 9
, Article 13. 10.1186/1471-2431-9-13.
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Abstract
Background: Near term infants are a main part of preterms. They are at higher risk for mortality and morbidity than term infants and could show a quite different development of tone and reflexes from them. The aim of the present study was to describe longitudinally, in a large sample of healthy near term infants, the development of the forward parachute reaction (FPR) and its correlation with the age of acquisition of independent walking.Methods: The assessment of FPR (as absent, incomplete or complete) was performed at 3, 6, 9, 12 months of corrected age in 484 infants, with a gestational age between 35.0 and 36.9 weeks. The age of acquisition of independent walking was monitored until its appearance. A correlation analysis was done between the age of walking and the acquisition of a complete or incomplete FPR, using the Spearman Rank correlation. The Mann-Withney U test was used to identify significant gestational age differences for the age of FPR appearance.Results: Most of infants had a two-step development pattern. In fact, they showed at first an incomplete and then a complete FPR, which was observed more frequently at 9 months. An incomplete FPR only, without a successive maturation to a complete FPR, was present in the 21% of the whole sample. Infants with a complete FPR walked at a median age of 13 months, whereas those with an incomplete FPR only walked at a median age of 14 months.Conclusion: We identified two groups within our sample of near term infants. The first group showed a progressive maturation of FPR, whereas the second one was characterised by the inability to get a complete pattern, within the one year observation's period. Furthermore, we observed a trend toward a delayed acquisition of independent walking in the latter group of infants.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Development of the forward parachute reaction and the age of walking in near term infants: a longitudinal observational study |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/1471-2431-9-13 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-9-13 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2009 Romeo et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | LOW-BIRTH-WEIGHT, PRETERM INFANTS, OPTIMALITY SCORE, WEEKS GESTATION, OUTCOMES, CHILDREN, BORN, RISK |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1329324 |
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