Low birthweight babies with oesophageal atresia or tracheo-oesophageal fistula.

Of 142 patients of known gestation with oesophageal atresia or tracheo-oesophageal fistula, 21% were preterm with a mean weight of 2 kg, 19% were small-for-dates with a mean weight of 2.23 kg, and the remaining 60% were born at term and weighed more than 2.5 kg. There were almost five times as many preterm and almost eight times as many small-for-date infants as in a normal population. Respiratory distress syndrome and additional severe congenital anomalies were commoner in babies of short gestational age, and pneumonia was more common in small-for-dates babies.