WEDNESDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- Being born prematurely can lead to a host of long-lasting medical complications and may also affect other areas of life, such as education and income, even when no disability is apparent, a new study suggests.

In the July 17 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Norwegian researchers report that babies born prematurely are more likely to have cerebral palsy, mental retardation and to need to receive disability payments.

More surprisingly, the researchers also found that when premature babies grew up, even if they had no identifiable disability, the youngest preemies were less likely to have a high income, more likely to be unemployed, more likely to receive Social Security benefits and less likely to become parents.

"The pessimistic view [of our study] is that we have demonstrated an increased risk for a broad spectrum of medical disabilities due to decreased gestational age, and for those without medical disabilities, a lesser but significant risk for a broad spectrum of social outcomes," said the study's lead author, Dr. Dag Moster, a neonatologist at the Haukeland University Hospital.

On the other hand, said Moster, "The optimistic view is that the majority of preterm survivors in our study do not have medical disabilities and seem to function very well as adults."

The study included data from more than 900,000 infants born without known birth defects between 1967 and 1983 in Norway. Of that group, 1,822 were born between 23 and 27 weeks of gestation -- 40 weeks is considered full-term. Another 2,805 were born between 28 and 30 weeks, while 7,424 were born between 31 and 33 weeks. Slightly less than 33,000 were born between 34 and 36 weeks, and the remainder were born 37 weeks or later.

For those born at term, the risk of cerebral palsy was 0.1 percent, compared to 9.1 percent for those born between 23 and 27 weeks. The risk of mental retardation was 0.4 percent for full-term babies, versus 4.4 percent for babies born between 23 and 27 weeks.

Just 1.7 percent of the full-term group received a disability pension in adulthood, compared to 10.6 percent of those who had been born between 23 and 27 weeks of gestation.

The smallest babies -- those born between 23 and 27 weeks -- who survived with no apparent medical disabilities were also 10 percent less likely to finish high school, 20 percent less likely to have completed college, 20 percent less likely to have a high income, 20 percent more likely to receive Social Security benefits and 20 percent less likely to have become parents than babies born full-term.

There was no association found between premature delivery and unemployment or criminal behavior, according to the study.

"It is important to emphasize that most premature children who survived without medical disabilities completed higher education, had good jobs and appeared to function well as adults," Moster said.

Dr. Jennifer Kloesz, a neonatologist at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, said the study's findings point to the need for parents to act as their child's advocate, long term.

"If you have a baby who's made it through the NICU [neonatal intensive care unit] relatively OK, you need to keep reminding your child's health-care team that your child was born prematurely and try to optimize their chances for staying on track with developmental skills. And, be sure to take advantage of whatever services schools offer for premature babies," she said.

More information

To learn more about the immediate health consequences for premature babies, visit the American Academy of Pediatrics  .

TUESDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- Even if young children aren't watching the TV, it may be distracting them from their play and depriving them of developing critical attention skills, a new study says.

When children aged 3 and younger played in a room with a television on that was tuned to adult programming, they played for about 5 percent less time than when there was no background TV. More importantly, when there was no background TV, the children's play was more focused with longer play episodes, the study found.

"Background TV is a disruptive and distracting influence. Our evidence is that TV keeps the children from sustaining their attention at a time when developmentally, they're beginning to organize their attention skills and sequencing behaviors," said study senior author Daniel Anderson, a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

"Parents think it [background TV] doesn't matter because the programs aren't directed at children, but just because a child isn't paying active attention doesn't mean it doesn't have a disruptive effect," he added.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children 2 years old and younger be exposed to no screen time. For older children, the AAP suggests limiting screen time -- including TV, video games and computer use -- to one to two hours a day of active viewing time. Guidelines haven't specifically addressed background TV.

Because many children are exposed to background TV, and the visual and auditory cues on TV change about every six seconds, Anderson and his colleagues wondered if this exposure affects very young children.

The new study, published in the July/August issue of Child Development, included 50 toddlers who were either 12, 24 or 36 months old. Each child was videotaped during hour-long sessions in a family-room type environment. Their parents were asked to limit their interaction with the children.

The children were randomly assigned to either play with no background TV for the first half hour or to play with an adult game show on TV while they were playing with toys. Then, for the second half hour, the children switched roles.

"Children's play episodes were shorter -- about half as long -- if the TV was on, compared to when it wasn't, [and] children were more likely to move from toy to toy during the time TV was on," Anderson said.

He said these differences weren't obvious if you were in the room with the children, but if you slowly reviewed the videotape, the differences became much more apparent. "The kids look normal. They don't look distressed or distracted," he said.

Dr. Daniel Bronfin, a pediatrician with the Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, called background TV the "equivalent of secondhand smoke."

"All of the concerns we have with children watching programming for children still apply to secondhand viewing. It distracts from the work of childhood, from play," he said.

Bronfin said this type of constant distraction may be a contributing factor to the rise in behavioral disorders, such as attention-deficit disorder.

Both Anderson and Bronfin recommend that parents leave background TV off when a child is in the room. Anderson said that certain children's shows have value and children can learn from them, but that's different from background TV.

More information

For more on kids and TV, visit the Nemours Foundation's KidsHealth  .

TUESDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- New evidence suggests that a cholesterol-lowering drug widely prescribed for adults may not help children with a fairly common genetic disorder.

Zocor (simvastatin) did not improve cognitive function in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a disorder which can involve learning disabilities.

The findings were published in the July 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

According to background information in the article, NF1 occurs in about one in 3,000 to 4,000 people worldwide. The condition is characterized by changes in skin pigmentation and tumor growth along nerves in the skin, brain and elsewhere. Individuals with this disorder have a higher risk of developing several different kinds of cancer. Patients may also suffer from learning disabilities and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD).

Some studies in mice have suggested that treatment with statins might improve some of these cognitive problems.

To test the theory, researchers at Erasmus MC University Medical Center and Sophia Children's Hospital in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, randomized 62 children with NF1 to receive either Zocor or a placebo once a day for three months.

There were no significant differences in various cognitive measures, including some involving memory and attention, between the two groups.

The researchers did, however, find an improvement in "object assembly scores."

In conclusion, the authors, said, Zocor should not be prescribed to children with NF1-related cognitive deficits based purely on these results. More studies need to be conducted.

More information

The National Library of Medicine has more on NF1.

FRIDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- The teen birth rate is up for the first time in 15 years, and homicides among teens are up for the first time in 12 years, a new government report finds.

On the plus side, there has been a drop in childhood deaths from injuries, and fewer eighth graders are smoking, according to the report, put out by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics.

"The number of children in this country has increased, as it has been increasing for some time -- 73.7 million in 2006 to 73.9 million in 2007," Edward J. Sondik, director of the National Center for Health Statistics, said during a morning teleconference Thursday.

At the same time, the proportion of children in the population as a whole has decreased, from 24.6 percent in 2006 to 24.5 percent in 2007, Sondik said. "The trend is continuing, and we think it will reach 24 percent by 2020," he added.

Sondik noted that the proportion of Asian and Hispanic children in the population has increased. "In general, this population is becoming more diverse, as is the population as a whole," he said.

One disturbing trend among teens is the increased rate of births, Sondik said.

"The 2006 teen birth rate was up for the first time in 15 years," Sondik said. "This is only a single-year increase, but we believe it bears watching."

The birth rate among girls aged 15 to 17 increased from 21 births per 1,000 girls in 2005 to 22 per 1,000 in 2006. In 2005, there were 133,138 teen births, and, in 2006, there were 138,920, Sondik noted.

"A longstanding trend -- the increase in low birth weight infants continued unabated in 2006," Sondik said. The rate of low birth weight increased from 8.2 percent in 2005 to 8.3 percent in 2006.

One positive finding was that smoking rates have declined among some middle school students.

"Fewer eighth-graders are smoking now than they did a year ago," Sondik said. "But we didn't see any change between 2006 and 2007 among 10th- or 12th-graders."

Among eighth-graders, those who reported smoking cigarettes dropped from 4 percent in 2006 to 3 percent in 2007. This continues a decline in smoking among this group from a peak of 10 percent in 1996, Sondik noted.

Another disturbing trend is the increase in violent crimes and homicides committed by adolescents, Sondik said.

"Homicides increased in 2005 for the first time since 1993," Sondik said. "In 2005, the firearm homicide rate also increased for the first time in more than a decade."

Adolescents aged 12 to 17 who committed violent crimes increased from 14 crimes per 1,000 in 2004 to 17 per 1,000 in 2005. This is still a substantially lower rate than was seen in 1993, when there were 52 violent crimes per 1,000 adolescents, the report stated.

However, there was a decline in the number of deaths from injury among children aged 5 to 14. Deaths from injury dropped from 8.2 per 100,000 in 2004 to 7.7 per 100,000 in 2005. Deaths from injuries among adolescents aged 15 to 19 also dropped, from 51.3 per 100,000 in 2004 to 49.8 in 2005.

Other risky behaviors, such as alcohol and drug use, were unchanged, report authors noted.

From 2005 to 2006, the numbers of children with health insurance dropped to 88 percent from 89 percent. During that year, 8.7 million (12 percent) of the nation's children had no health insurance, according to the report.

Most American children (81 percent), aged 19 months to 30 months had their recommended vaccinations. This is up substantially from the 70 percent it was a decade ago, Sondik said.

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics is a working group of agencies that collect, analyze, and report data on issues related to children and families. The group also has partners in private research organizations.

More information

To see the full report, visit the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics.