Premature birth; how to tell if one is affected by it?

Well, I was a premature myself born at seven months. I can’t really say there is anything wrong with me. Maybe that my lungs are a little undeveloped and my eye sight isn’t that great. :o
It depends, really.
I’m lucky I didn’t come out worse, my parents were addicts.

One of my brothers was premature, born at 7 months and weighed 4 lbs. Back then, that was very small. He is 55 and out of all of us, he has the best personality, everyone loves him, young or old and holds a great job. There is no signs of anything wrong with him in any way.
He has had a heart attack, but that can not be attributed to low birthrate.

I think any developmental delays would be noted in the first years of the childs life.
I would have to research.

Sometimes their are vision issues and moter skill issues but not always.

My great grandmother was a 7 month preemie.
She was born at home in a farmhouse in Indiana in 1885!

She weighed 2 lbs. and they wrapped her in cotton and put her in a cigar box.

She died in 1983 just a month short of her 98th birthday!

I was born 3 months premature, and can say that my eyesight is very poor. My mother said I weighed less than a bag of sugar. I also have a tendency to do a lot of sleeping, but I’m not so sure that is connected in any way.

I think that you should just assume your friend is the same as you are. Forget about their being born prematurely.

It is not likely to affect them in any way that shows.

I think it really depends on how much the person weighed at birth. Most of the time lung function will be the problem. Since lungs are the last thing to develop in a fetus usually in the 9th month. My sister was 7 months when born and she had severe asthma for years.
What we didn’t know at the time was that during her teen years she was showing signs of thyroid problems but she really didn’t show the worst of it till she was in her late 30’s.
There is no way of knowing if that was due to early birth or just inherited since I also have a brother who had a pituritary problem during his teen years. I also have a cousin who has thyroid.
Anyhow. The point is that some things can be directly linked to an early birth and some may not be connected at all. There is no way of knowing.

7 months and/or 4 pounds is kind of the more or less cut-off for you are going to have no effects from being premature or have some sort of problem. I know many many people born 2 months early and they are as normal as anyone else, but once you get into the six month area it is more difficult, lungs, sight, and other disorders. Of course this is not a hard and fast rule, but that has been my experience.

My third child was born the earliest of my three, which were all induced labor births and all early. Born at approximately 8 months in weighing 5lbs 14oz, she’s the only one who had any issues, but they were minor. Her lungs weren’t quite developed, and she had delayed fine motor skills. She has some mild breathing problems still (she’s almost 13), but her fine motor skills eventually caught up.

Pretty sure you cannot judge a book by it’s cover, especially as adults. There are plenty of mentally and physically challenged people born after normal gestation durations, just as there are plenty of normal people born prematurely. A child under the age of 10 though, I am not sure.

@tigress3681, I’m not trying to judge a book by it’s cover, =_= merely because I knew NO information about premature births at all, I wanted to ask about it. I’m also pretty sure you can’t judge a book by it’s cover either. The little information I knew about premature births were in my attempts to google about it and search things up. But fluther gives answers that I can find nowhere else.

@marinelife, I don’t think about it at all when I interact with my friend, I was just curious to find out more information… =\

To everyone else: thanks for the new knowledge!

@curiouscat although the word “you” was used. You were not the intended subject.