Babies born just a few weeks before their term are more predisposed to dying during their first week of life then the babies delivered at normal terms, according to a statistics published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

"We have known from previous studies that late preterm infants have greater risk of certain problems like respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), feeding difficulties, temperature instability (hypothermia), jaundice and brain development, Now we have evidence that there is a greater risk of death among these babies," said Dr. Jennifer L. Howse, president of the March of Dimes Foundation.

Babies born between 37 and 41 weeks of pregnancy are considered normally born babies.

According to researchers, babies born between 34 and 36 weeks have six times higher chances to die in their first week although the chances are decreasing three times after the first week of their life.

The overall mortality rate for the 34-36 week group is 7.9 per 1,000 compared to 2.4 per 1,000 live births. They seem to suffer of respiratory problems, jaundice and higher rates of returning in hospitals after being discharged compared to full-term babies.

The new research was based on the study of 27.2 million births by the National Center for Health Statistics between 1995 and 2002.

"What the data are showing is not just that these kids die more often. Even if they survive, they have a lot more morbidity than people think," says Gabriel Escobar, research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California. He was not involved in the research, but he supervised the rates of these babies returning to the hospitals.

Such babies, who do not go to the intensive care unit face the danger of coming back in hospitals very soon after they were sent home with their mothers according to Dr. Escobar’ sayings. Feeding problems seem to be their number one enemy. He said that many of them eat normally in the first couple of days but due to lack of energy, they get lazy when it comes about eating and become dehydrated.

There is no study, which can help mothers to raise these babies. The only thing that can be done is to “try to prevent what’s preventable,” as Joann Petrini, a study author and director of the Prenatal Data Center at the March of Dimes. What Petrini tries to tell is that women carrying pregnancies should be as healthier as ever when deciding to have a baby. They should avoid an unnecessary early delivery and ask their doctors if an induction or C-section is necessary.

Another suggestion was that future mothers should be benefit from “more intense monitoring” once pregnancy term is approaching.