Psychomotor development in very and extremely low-birth-weight preterm children: Could it be predicted by early motor milestones and perinatal complications?

Preterm-born children are at risk of slower psychomotor development. This risk may be associated with low birth weight and other perinatal factors and morbidities. We aimed to assess psychomotor development in school-aged preterm children, and to determine whether some early motor and perinatal variables could be related to and/or predict the later motor achievements. Parents of 54 very low-birth-weight preterm, 24 extremely low-birth-weight preterm and 96 control children completed the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC-2-C) checklist and were interviewed about the motor milestones of their children. Significant differences were found between the preterm and control groups in the MABC-2-C results. MABC-2-C outcomes were significantly predicted by the age of crawling, the use of steroids, mechanical ventilation and intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH). The use of screening tools may allow the rapid identification of psychomotor development delays. The presence of some perinatal risk factors and some motor milestone attainments could be related to motor development in the later childhood of preterm children.