The infants born prematurely, with low and extremely low weight, now have more chances of survival in Moldova. As many as 119 infants weighing less than 1 kg and 175 babies weighing 1-1.5 kg at birth were helped to survive last year. The survival chances increased following the implementation of a new program of assistance to newborns at the Mother and Child Center. Contacted by Info-Prim Neo, Petru Stratulat, deputy director for science of the Institute of Scientific Research in the Mother and Child Health Protection, said that within this program they study the development dynamics of children. The low birth weight babies need special care as their organs are developed incompletely, they have respiratory problems and their nervous system is more sensitive. The premature births are caused by certain infections, diseases and complications during pregnancy. “The infants are often born prematurely in case of artificial insemination, when there are twins or triplets. There are also infections that are hard to be detected. Also, many women do not go to the doctor for ordinary check. Some of the women have health problems and should not become pregnant, but we cannot ban them as it is their right. Regretfully, the fact that they are not healthy leads to premature births,” said Petru Stratulat. According to him, stress and the lack of appropriate hygiene are among other causes of premature births. The project to examine and help the children born prematurely is based on a standard worked out by the World Health Organization. “We switched to the standard of looking after infants of 22 weeks who weigh 500 grams. These children are considered capable of living,” stated Petru Stratulat. The babies with low and very low birth weight started to be cared for in Moldova in 1988.