adjusted age

[Mrs Doddy]

when people talk about prem babies I have often seen.heard them say about the adjusted age - why ??? I don't understand this - Jess was 4 weeks early but I always say that she is the age that she actually is

another question - as a prem baby will they always be behind developmentally and size ???

 

[AP]

I think when they are very early its a big deal and needs to be corrected in terms of development. (my LO was 3 months early so theres a big difference to what a child her age full term would do)
4 weeks, personally I wouldnt correct that.

Some babies do 'catch up' developmentally, others dont until they are much bigger. As for size, I know someone with a 27 weeker who has caught up in size now. Mine definatley hasnt though!

 

[xx Emily xx]

Ajusted age aka corrected gestation is really important particularly in preterm babies as it gives us an idea of what we should expect the baby to be able to do. For example you would expect a week old baby to be bottle/breast feeding on demand etc, but not if that baby was born at 28 weeks! Some gestational ages are landmarks to aim for. At 34 weeks gestation a baby should be able to start feeding orally, thats the stage at which in utero they would learn to coordinate sucking swallowing and breathing. So we wouldnt give a bottle to a baby with a corrected / adjusted age of 31 weeks. Does that make sense? xxx

 

[Millnsy]

My LO was born at 34 weeks and in the early days we did think in terms of corrected age. The hospital told me that I wasn't allowed to let her go more than 3 hours without a feed until she reached 37 weeks gestation as she was quite sleepy and would have slept through her feeds. In terms of size she is now on the 91st centile actual age and 97th centile corrected so has definitely caught up / taken over! In terms of developmentally, she was late to roll over and site up but now that she is rolling there is no stopping her and she is crawling backwards ahead of other babies her age. When she was tiny it made a bigger difference but the older she gets, the less difference it seems to make.

Hope that helps.

 

[Anna_due Dec]

I don't think i'd correct 4 weeks either but when my 27 weeker was 6 months he was obviously only 3 months corrected and if you think of a 6 month old...starting to sit up or even crawl it would be terribly unfair to expect that of a 3 month old not to mention you wouldn't start a 3 month old corrected on solids even though they are 6 months actual. It is really important with very early prems...don't forget some babies are 4 months early, so while 4 weeks may not make much difference - 2,3 or 4 months is a long time to not correct.

 

[Foogirl]

At 11 weeks early corrected age makes a world of difference. Especially when people ask "is she .... yet" or "at what age did your lo ...."

Abby did some things at actual age, some things at corrected age and some things nowhere near either of the two.

I'm not sure I would correct a 4 week difference but would have it in mind if I thought there was a milestone which should have been hit a couple of months before but hasn't been.

 

[bathbabe]

my baby was born 4weeks early, i do correct his age as he acted like a prem baby (which he was, just not by much) but he had very very small feeds, slept ALL the time, had to wake him every 3hours to feed for the first 4weeks, the first week he took 10-30ml in a feed at most. If he had been born and was alert, feeding etc i wouldnt. But he is behind. He didnt smile till 10/11weeks, where full term babies start smiling at 6weeks (on average) even now at 5months he is on the 9th percentile on preterm charts. Once he starts catching up with other babies and you cant notice that he is behind / smaller etc than other babies his age i wont bother. The gp and hv also use his corrected age. Xxx

 

[Mellage]

Finlay was 4 weeks early and I always use his actual age not his corrected age, as he is as old as he is. When its only a small difference like that I dont think it makes any difference but when you get over 6 weeks I would say maybe. The HV i saw for his 8 month check was horrified that I was calling him 46 weeks instead of 42.

 

[Fiestagal]

I didn't correct for my daughter who was 3.5 weeks early but did correct for my son when it came to his weight, also he was more behind in his milestones. He was 'only' 5 weeks early but the size of a baby 10 weeks younger.

 

[katy1310]

Like the others have said, I personally wouldn't correct 4 weeks early. Sophie was 13 weeks early so it's a big difference between her actual age of 7 months and her corrected age of 4 months. I would not expect her to do something a 7 month old baby can do.

She has just started rolling over and according to the health visitor, is meeting all her developmental milestones for a baby of her corrected age which is great. She is small though, and still in newborn and 0-3 month clothes - some of the 0-3 month things are massive on her!

xx

 

[Sugarmuppet]

Gaby was only 6 weeks early but we have always corrected it. She is only just on the weight charts for her adjusted age so wouldn't even be on the page for her correct age. She had newborn tights and a 0-3 month outfit on today Makes me feel better too, saying that she is only 'really' seven months instead of 8 and a half as she is pretty behind with her development. She didn't smile until she was 14 weeks and didn't giggle until she was 5 months.