EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY ON SMALL GESTATIONAL AGES

Recruitment in the Epipage 2 study took place from 28 March to 31 December 2011. During this period, all births (live, stillborn, medical termination of pregnancy) that occurred between 22 and 34 weeks of amenorrhea were included in the study, after families information. We have adapted the recruitment period to birth term  so that the different types of prematurity are represented in sufficient numbers.

  • 8 months of recruitment for extreme preterm children (born before the end of the 6th month of pregnancy, between 22 and 26 weeks of amenorrhea completed) born between March 28 and December 31, 2011
  • 6 months of recruitment for very preterm children (born before the end of the 7th month of pregnancy, between 27 and 31 weeks of amenorrhea completed) born between March 28 and October 30, 2011
    5 weeks of recruitment for moderately pretermchildren (born at the beginning of the 8th month of pregnancy, between 32 and 34 weeks of amenorrhea completed) born between May 2 and June 5, 2011.

This initial phase of the study allowed to register 8,400 premature births between March 28 and December 31, 2011, including live children (5,567), stillbirths (1,435) and terminations of pregnancy (1,398). At this stage, 7% of families refused to be included in the study.
Under the Epirmex and Biopag projects, an extension of the inclusions took place in 2012. Around 100 children are involved.

Information collected

  • Information about the mother:

- course of pregnancy (complications, treatments taken) and childbirth (information collected from medical records),
- on her environment and her feelings about this birth (in an interview with the mother)
- her health before going back home with her child (via a self-administered-questionnaire)

  • Information on the child’s health at birth and its evolution during hospitalization (main complications, treatments, nutrition, medical treatment, etc.) (information collected from medical records).