Demographics by weight

Russian doctors pledge to save babies from 500 grams

Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zurabov seems to have found a fundamentally new approach to improve unpleasant demographic statistics . In just a few years, the lists of living Russians will be replenished with citizens born with very low birth weight. Now in our country, nursing children born weighing less than 1000 g is considered a unique event, the destiny of advanced medical centers. The Ministry of Health and Social Development is preparing to significantly lower the bar.

“We are preparing a set of measures for new statistical recording technology in perinatal centers. We must take into account extremely low birth weight children, weighing up to 500 g,” Mr. Zurabov said yesterday at a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and members of the government. The talk of caring for all, without exception, live-born babies weighing 500 g or more has been going on in ministerial circles for more than a year, and, knowing the tenacity with which the minister “pushes” his ideas, we can assume that such a program will be funded in the very near future -- the cost of equipping postpartum intensive care units is second only to cardiac surgery units. Special equipment for early nursing is purchased within the framework of the national project “Health”, and, of course, leading specialized research institutes have long been equipped with it.

However, Mr. Zurabov, even without taking into account premature babies, tried to assure Vladimir Putin that demographic indicators are changing for the better. “Over the past year, mortality decreased by 138 thousand cases, over the four months of this year - by 52.5 thousand,” the minister reported. Moreover, according to the Ministry of Health and Social Development, among children under one year old, the national average mortality rate has already decreased by 15%. “And in some regions there are higher rates. There are eight or nine such regions,” noted Mr. Zurabov. And in the most important for the country, the Central Federal District and the Northwestern Federal District, they managed to save 19-20% more children.

There are actually not that many extremely premature babies - only 0.3-0.5% of all births. But, cynical as it may sound, keeping them alive improves survival statistics for all newborns in general. As the Federal State Institution Scientific Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology “Rosmedtekhnologii” told Vremya Novostey, if the department is equipped and organized in such a way that it allows supporting the vital functions of even extremely premature babies, then all other children automatically receive the maximum possible range of medical services. “There is no fundamental difference in caring for simply premature babies and those whose weight is less than one kilogram, the only difference is that in the latter case no failures, even the slightest deviations, are unacceptable,” the deputy director for scientific work at the Federal State University explained to Vremya Novostei Elena Baybarina. According to her, of course, there is equipment that is intended exclusively for the weakest and low-weight children, for example, incubators with climate control and a moisture regulator. The cost of such a place is 730 thousand rubles, but there are many devices (X-ray machines, ultrasound machines, pumps for very precise infusions), which are no less necessary for children weighing, say, 1.5 or 2 kilograms.

If we talk not only about the possibility of preserving the lives of the youngest, but also about the quality of this life in the future, much here also depends on technology. Half of extremely premature babies die in the first year of life. Of those that survive, in the West, 30% remain disabled. In our country, deviations are subsequently observed in almost half of them. True, it is worth considering that the true “watershed” here is the 750 g mark. A lower birth weight, as a rule, is fraught with serious pathologies, but a higher one is quite compatible not only with life, but also with a very active one. “We have a girl who was born weighing exactly 750 g, now she is in the fourth grade, completely normal,” said Elena Baibarina. So the desire to improve statistics in this particular case will very likely allow those who were previously denied this right to survive.

Galina PAPERNAYA