Martynenko Yana Y. Development features of the nervous system of extremely low birth weight children (clinic, neuroimaging, management, prognosis)

The research work is devoted to the actual problem of perinatal neurology saving health of extremely low birth weight infants through early timely diagnosis of the nervous system pathology and implementation of complex therapeutic measures. The frequency of extremely low weight infants’ birth is 0.21 % of all newborns and 5.24 % of preterm infants in a separately allocated region. The mortality rate for this group of children is 71.77 %. No single child among those who survived is without a pathology of the nervous system. 50.85% of survived children are diagnosed with cerebral palsy, 18.64% – epilepsy, 15.25% – visual impairments, 3.39% - hearing impairments. The analysis of maternal antenatal risk factors for extremely low birth weight infants has shown that the dominant risk factors for birth are social ones. Cranial ultrasonography remains the screening method for the brain pathology examination of the newborn. But this method has limited ability to predict the development of the child. Therefore, MRI is a "gold standard" for assessing the severity of structural brain damage in extremely low birth weight infants provided timely early and dynamic performance. Birth of extremely low weight infants leads to a decrease in brain volume in comparison with healthy children, which adversely affects future development. The results of our work allowed to develop a scheme of diagnostic and therapeutic measures to prevent severe nervous system pathology, which will save health of this group of children.