Overall risks
Disability - combined risks
Percentage of Children with Different Degrees of Disability
Different functional problems are often combined together to produce an overall risk of "disability". Obviously the size of this risk depends upon what is included in the final category. Although the risks are high, it is very important to remember that the majority of extremely premature children have no problems or only relatively minor problems as they grow up - by this we mean doing reasonably well at school, keeping up in the classroom, and have normal behaviour patterns. This is often not emphasised in discussions.
In the table below, based on the outcome of the EPICure group at 6 years, we give the risks of different degrees of disability at each gestational week:
| Gestation at Birth | 23 weeks or less | 24 weeks | 25 weeks |
| No Disability | 12% | 14% | 24% |
| Mild Disability - e.g. low normal IQ scores, wears glasses & has a squint, mild hearing loss, minor neurological abnormalities | 25% | 36% | 35% |
| Moderate Disability - e.g. moderate learning problems, cerebral palsy but walking, hearing aids, some vision deficit | 38% | 22% | 22% |
| Severe Disability - e.g. severe learning problems, cerebral palsy & not walking, profound deafness, blindness | 25% | 29% | 18% |
| at birth - % going onto survive without Serious Disability | after Admission to NICU - % going onto survive without serious disability | |
| 22 weeks | 1% | 5% |
| 23 weeks | 3% | 6% |
| 24 weeks | 9% | 12% |
| 25 weeks | 20% | 24% |
Note - these figures relate to the EPICure children born in 1995 and how they were at their 6 year follow up. The reason why the chance of surviving without disability goes up for babies once they are admitted to a Neonatal Unit is that this group has already excluded those babies born alive but who, sadly, died before admission for intensive care.
New survival figures from EPICure 2 (see graph) are now available and will be followed by longer term outcome information in 18 months time. Early indications are that the number of problems babies have during their first admission to the neonatal unit have not decreased and therefore the outcome may be very similar for these babies. If we use survival information from the 2006 study and outcome data from the 1995 study we can estimate very roughly what current chances are for survival without serious problems in England today:
| 23 weeks | 24 weeks | 25 weeks | |
| Survival without serious disability | 11% | 24% | 40% |