Steroids Help Reduce The Risk Of Respiratory Diseases To Infants, Study Claims

A recent study showed that giving steroids to pregnant women at risk for late preterm delivery may actually help in reducing the risk of contracting severe respiratory problems in their yet to born child.

The researchers from Columbia University Medical Center had almost 3,000 randomly selected pregnant moms diagnosed with a high risk of late preterm delivery or 34 to 36 weeks of pregnancy. They were then given two injections over 24 hours consisting either a steroid called betamethasone or a placebo. Since a full-term pregnancy is considered to be 40 weeks, steroids are administered to moms to prevent complication in babies born at 34 weeks.

According to the study, babies born to moms who received the steroid were observed to have a lesser severe respiratory complications shortly after birth, and the need for these babies to stay in the neonatal intensive unit longer or receive early respiratory treatments were ruled out - compared to those moms who received just the placebo.

"Our study demonstrates that administering a medication that is commonly used to prevent complications in babies born before 34 weeks of gestation can also reduce the risk of many serious complications in babies delivered just a few weeks before term," Dr. Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman explains in a report that was published by New England Journal of Medicine. "This will transform the way we care for mothers at risk for late preterm delivery." 

Out of more than 300,000 (or 8 percent) of babies born in the United States are classified as late preterm births. 36,000 of these babies (or 12 percent) have been diagnosed to have respiratory or other serious complications that required them to be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit for a long time.

"While survival among late preterm infants is comparable to that of babies born at term, the rate of respiratory problems and other serious complications in this group is not comparable and remains unacceptably high," Gyamfi-Bannerman said. "Expanding the use of a well-studied, safe medication to improve lung development before birth offers a means of preventing many of these complications."