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 These young adults born preterm also considered themselves less
physically fit, even though the study didn’t find their
cardiorespiratory fitness levels to be much different than people
who weren’t born early.
Pregnancy normally lasts about 40 weeks, and babies born after 37
weeks are considered full term. In the weeks immediately after
birth, preemies often have difficulty breathing and digesting food.
Some premature infants also encounter longer-term challenges such as
impaired vision, hearing, and cognitive skills as well as social and
behavioral problems.
Previous research has also found that the tiniest and most immature
preemies may have poor muscular fitness. But the current study is
important because it suggests that this problem may extend to all
pre-term babies, even those who are only slightly early or a little
bit underweight, said lead author Dr. Marjaana Tikanmaki of the
National Institute for Health and Welfare and University of Oulu in
Finland.
“The differences in muscular fitness of young adults born preterm
were detected in our study across the full range of preterm birth,
but not for cardiovascular fitness,” Tikanmaki said by email.
But, Tikanmaki added, “The test we used to measure cardiovascular
fitness may not be sensitive enough to detect small differences
between those born preterm and those born at term.”
To see how the timing of birth might impact fitness later in life,
the researchers studied 139 young adults born before 34 weeks
gestation, which is considered early preterm, as well as 247 people
born from 34 to 36 weeks, or late preterm. They compared these
individuals to a control group of 352 full term individuals.
On average, the participants were around 23 years old.
Researchers assessed muscular fitness based on the number of
modified push-ups performed in 40 seconds, a test that measures
short-term endurance capacity of the upper body and the ability to
stabilize the trunk.
On average, women did about 10 push-ups and men managed about 14.
But the people who were born preterm typically did about one less
push-up than their full-term peers.
In another assessment of muscular fitness, researchers also examined
grip strength based on how hard people could squeeze a
force-measuring device with their dominant hand.
With this test, people born early preterm didn’t do as well as those
born late preterm or full term.
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To check cardiorespiratory fitness, researchers asked participants
to step on and off a bench at a set pace for four minutes.
By the end of this test, the average heart rate for women was 160
beats a minute, while it was 153 beats a minute for the men. There
wasn’t a difference based on the timing of birth.
Researchers also asked participants to rate their own fitness, from
1 to 5, with higher scores for better abilities in this area.
Average scores were 2.3 for women and 2.6 for men.
The early preterm people typically scored themselves about 0.2
points lower than full-term participants, and higher scores were
linked to better measurements of physical fitness, the researchers
reported in the journal Pediatrics.
One limitation of the study is that the cardiorespiratory fitness
test didn’t necessarily push people to their maximum ability, a type
of exercise that often takes longer and may gradually increase in
difficulty until participants can no longer continue.
It’s also possible that these relatively young participants may have
been too fit relative to older adults to detect large differences in
their cardiovascular health, Tikanmaki noted.
Even so, the results highlight the importance of focusing on heart
health early in life to ward off potential problems down the line,
noted Dr. Ravi Shah, a researcher at Harvard Medical School in
Boston who wasn’t involved in the study.
“These findings support efforts to reduce obesity and improve
physical fitness throughout early life, though any specific
recommendations regarding exercise should be individualized and
undertaken only after counseling from a physician,” Shah said by
email.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1QY3kYT Pediatrics, online December 29, 2015.
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