Infants born prematurely might be at an increased risk of stroke by early adulthood, with earlier births considered as higher risks, a new study has found.
Released in the journal Stroke, researchers affiliated with the American Heart Association examined the records of over 2 million people born in Sweden throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.
The participants were assessed by 2015, with the oldest being age 43, for any evidence of stroke.
The findings concluded that preterm birth was associated with a heightened risk of hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke later in adulthood.
The study was authored by Casey Crump, Jan Sundquist, and Kristina Sundquist.
“In 28.0 million person-years of follow-up, 4,861 (0.2%) people were diagnosed with stroke,” the journal article detailed.
“At ages 18 to 43 years, the adjusted hazard ratio for stroke associated with preterm birth (<37 weeks) was 1.26, and further stratified was 1.42 for early preterm (22–33 weeks) and 1.22 for late preterm (34–36 weeks), compared with full-term (39–41 weeks)."
