Monday is National Premature Awareness Day in the United States. University of Kentucky Neonatologist Doctor Hubert Ballard says he is seeing an increase in the Commonwealth in the number of infants born prematurely.
Ballard says caffeine has been used for many years to treat babies born early. He says more recently but in much more limited cases, Viagra is used in therapies. However, Ballard says research on that drug continues. "It's challenging to take and do therapeutic trials on those extremely premature infants and that is why some of this research is kind of slow into progress would be the right term," said Ballard.
Every year, Dr. Ballard says nurses and doctors at UK Hospital care for between 80 to 100 babies born two pounds or less. Ballard says thanks to new technologies and treatments, some preemies are spending less time on ventilation machines. "The patients who, 10 years ago, would have been on a breathing machine for weeks to potentially months, we are routinely kind of able to challenge those babies more and get them off breathing machines much sooner," explained Ballard.
He says about 14 percent of infants born in Kentucky are premature. Ballard partly attributes the statistic to smoking, obesity, and limited care during pregnancy.
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