COMMUNICATE FINDINGS IN A CONCLUSION AND LINK FINDINGS BACK TO THE PURPSE OF THE INVESTIGATION

COMMUNICATE FINDINGS IN A CONCLUSION AND LINK FINDINGS BACK TO THE PURPOSE OF THE INVESTIGATION

The purpose of the investigation was to investigate differences between birth weights of VLBW babies that survive or do not survive found in America in the 1980s in order to establish whether there were differences between the weights of the babies that survive and those that don’t. An initial look at the variables given showed this to be the most promising variable in terms of differences.

It has been found that the median birth weights of VLBW babies born in America in the 1980s that did not survive were between 245-405g lighter than the median birth weights of VLBW babies born in America in 1980s that did survive.

This information combined with the knowledge we already had that VLBW babies are less likely to survive than normal babies proves that VLBW babies with a lighter birth weight than VLBW babies with a heavier birth weight are less likely to survive. Obstrecians, Doctors, midwives and expecting couples should all be prepared that a very light VLBW is very unlikely to survive.

From the sample data for survival of VLBW babies in relation to birth-weight I have concluded that there is a variance in the survival rate of VLBW babies depending on how low or high the birth-weight is; the higher it is the better chance the infant has of survival. This value is measured as birth-weight in grams (g).

My theory is well supported with the median birth-weight of VLBW babies that survived (1200g) being greater than the upper quartile of the babies that did not survive (1030g). This conclusion is also supported by the confidence interval created using the bootstrapping method. My confidence interval for this data set is between 257.5 – 410g, which by not containing zero indicates that VLBW babies that survive tend to have bigger birth weights than VLBW that do not survive.

Back in the population of very low birth weight babies born in the USA in the 1980's VLBW babies with heavier birth weights were more likely to survive than VLBW babies with lower birth weights.