The Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) as a Predictor of Cerebral Palsy among Low Birthweight Infants

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationship between newborn's behavior patterns as measured by the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) and long-term cerebral palsy (CP) as a neurological outcome among low birthweight infants. The subjects of this case-control study were low birthweight infants admitted to the NICU at the Nagasaki University Hospital between 1988 and 1994. The study subject consisted of 292 infants, with mean gestational age of 32.6 weeks and mean birth weight of 1648.6 grams. These infants were examined using NBAS at 36 weeks, at 40 weeks and at 44 weeks post-conceptional age (PCA). Each of infants was examined at five years of age again to measure its development status on standardized assessments. Logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between newborn's behavioral patterns in NBAS cluster scores and developmental status at five years. At five years of age, 148 infants were categorized within the normal range, 46 were categorized borderline and mental retardation, 14 died and 15 were diagnosed as having CP. The remaining 69 could not be contacted. The NBAS cluster scores of the 15 infants who were diagnosed CP were compared with the NBAS scores of the normal infants. NBAS cluster scores in the 15 newborn infants diagnosed as having CP five years later were significantly lower than in normal on Mann-Whitney U Tests. In the logistic regressions analysis, Motor (p