Association of Early Postnatal Transfer and Birth Outside a Tertiary Hospital With Mortality and Severe Brain Injury in Extremely Preterm Infants: Observational Cohort Study With Propensity Score Matching

Abstract

(Abstracted from BMJ 2019;367:l5678) Approximately 1 in 20 preterm infants in high-income countries are born at less than 28 weeks' gestation with increased risk of death and morbidity. Previous studies have shown improved outcomes when care is provided in tertiary hospitals as compared with nontertiary hospitals; this study aims to examine the rate of adverse outcomes for those preterm infants who underwent postnatal transfer to a tertiary facility in England.