Born Too Soon or Too Small

The effects of low birthweight on the quality and the quantity of the survivors of the neonatal period have been very extensively studied, and they seem to be uniformly adverse. But this information alone is of no pratical help to the obstetricians and paediatricians who have to make the relevant day-to-day clinical decisions, since low birthweight can be caused by two totally different abnormalities of the intra-uterine phase of growth - either shortening or slowing (or a combination of the two). It is only these primary abnormalities whose incidences or consequences can be modified by clinical actions, so it is their specific effects which the clinician needs to understand as fully as possible.