Any public or private agency administering a medical care program needs certain basic medical data to plan its program. In the field of maternal and child health, one fact of importance is the average length of hospital stay of newly born premature infants. This basic data assists in planning for such budgetary items as: reimbursement for hospital care; payment for pediatric consultation service; and estimation of the number of beds (incubators, heated cribs and bassinets) needed to care for the total number of premature infants born annually in any community.A review of the American literature for the past twenty years reveals that there is relatively little information on the average length of stay of newly born premature infants in hospitals. Table I summarizes the information available.It will be seen from Table I that there is considerable variation in the method of reporting. Some authors do not include premature infants weighing more than 5 pounds at birth; others include premature infants weighing more than 5? pounds. There is also variation as to whether a particular series includes the premature infants who die in the hospital, as well as those who are discharged alive.Table I shows that, for the series including only those infants who survived in the hospital, the average stay ranges from 17.3 to 28.8 days, with the majority falling between 24 and 28 days. For the series including both the premature infants who survived and those who died in the hospital, the average stay ranges from
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