Mental development of the first year premature infants with intraventricular cerebral hemorrhages

Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) is a common structural intracranial disorder in premature infants, leading to posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus and hydrocephalic syndrome (ventriculodilation) in half of the cases. Optimal treatment and follow-up criteria have not been established for these infants. To improve care for children with complicated forms of IVH, we studied their development during the first year of life. The study included 77 infants born at a gestational age of 28.3 ± 3.1 weeks with IVH of varying severity. All children were monitored by a neurosurgeon and treated in the neonatal intensive care unit during the neonatal period. The following groups of children were identified based on the types of treatment: surgical treatment for posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus (PHH, 33 children), conservative treatment for hydrocephalic syndrome (HS, 26 children), and a comparison group (grade 1 IVH, 18 children). A study of children’s mental development was conducted using the BDI (Battelle Developmental Inventory With Recalibrated Data and Norms). According to the results, no intergroup differences were observed at the corrected age of 3 months, whereas at 12 months, the PHH group demonstrated lower personal-social, adaptive, communicative, and overall development compared to the HS and comparison group. At 3 and, in general, 12 months, the overall development of girls was higher than that of boys. These study data indicate the need to include children from the surgical and conservative treatment groups for the consequences of IVH in early intervention programs.

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