The associations were explored between maternal ethnicity and outcomes of infants born between 22 and 31 weeks’ gestation and admitted to neonatal intensive care units in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Australia, between 1995 and 2006, using de-identified perinatal and neonatal outcome data for 10,117 infants (8,629 Caucasian, 922 Asian, 439 indigenous, 127 Polynesian and Māori [PAM]). Caucasians were the referent for all comparisons. Infants of indigenous mothers were less likely to receive antenatal steroids and three times as likely to be born in non-tertiary hospitals (OR 3.28; p<0.001). PAM infants were more likely to have Apgar scores <7 at 5 min of age (1.76; p<0.01). Asian infants had lower birth weight (mean 44.7; p<0.001) and head circumference percentiles (47.8; p<0.001), were more likely to be small for gestational age (1.53; p<0.001), less likely to have hyaline membrane disease (0.78; p<0.001) but had a higher risk of severe retinopathy of prematurity (1.52; p<0.01). Ethnicity did not influence infant mortality.
