ABSTRACT
Despite a steady decline in live birth rates in the United States over the past two decades, the incidence of preterm births (infants born at less than 37 weeks of gestation) had increased to 12.5 per cent in 2005 (Hamilton et al., 2003). Furthermore, advances in perinatal care, such as the increased use of assisted ventilation in the delivery room and surfactant therapy, have improved the chances for survival of low gestational age and low birth weight infants (Hack et al., 2000). The rising incidence of preterm births, coupled with their improved survival as a result of highly evolving technologies, has placed an increased need to developmore innovative and cost-effective treatment modalities for the consequences of prematurity during the neonatal period and later in life.
