by George Stamatis

Lynn T. Singer, Ph.D., professor in the department of pediatrics and the division of general medical sciences, has received a $1.9 million, four-year grant from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the Department of Health and Human Services to continue follow-up studies into early adolescence of children who were born prematurely and suffer from a lung condition called bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD).

Lynn T. Singer

Singer, who also is CWRU's deputy provost and vice president for academic programs, examines how BPD affects children's thinking ability, language, behavior and other factors. She and her associates also examine stresses on the families associated with parenting children who were born with BPD and at a very low birth weight.

The new phase of the study will assess children at 14 years of age and will have the study continuously funded for 17 years, making it the longest and most comprehensive study of BPD in the nation.

Since 1989, Singer has followed 302 children (110 with BPD, 80 who had very low birth weight but do not have BPD and 112 healthy, full-term). She said it is essential to continue following these children and their families.

"The incidence of BPD has continued to increase, rising from 7,000 cases annually in 1989 to more than 11,000 cases annually as of 2000. Yet, there are no comprehensive studies of the health, psychosocial and long-term outcomes of children with history of BPD and very low birth weight," Singer said.

In addition, there are virtually no studies of preterm infants as they encounter the physical and social changes of adolescence, she added.

The groups of children have been followed from birth to 8 years of age in her prior studies. Among the findings are that by three years, cognitive and/or motor development was in the range of retardation for 21 percent to 22 percent of children with BPD, considerably higher than very low birth weight or full-term children. At 8 years, children with BPD showed specific deficits in visual-motor, motor and language skills compared to very low birth-weight and term children.

Previous findings from the study have been published in major medical and psychological scientific journals. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, Singer and her collaborators documented that mothers of preterm infants experienced significant psychological distress at their infant's birth, and that, while mothers whose very low birth-weight infants regained health did as well or better than mothers of term infants by two years, mothers whose infants had developmental delays had recurrences of depression.

Collaborators on the study are Carolyn Kercsmar, M.D., professor of pediatrics at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital (RB&C), Jill Baley, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at RB&C, Barbara Lewis, Ph.D., associate professor of pediatrics at RB&C, Elizabeth Short, associate professor of psychology, Ph.D., CWRU, Henry (Les) Kirchner, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at RB&C, and Mee Young Oh, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics, CWRU and Nancy Klein, Ph.D., professor of education at Cleveland State University.

 

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