1 University of Miami School of Medicine, Mailman Center for Child Development (D-820), PO Box 016820, 1601 NW 12th Ave, Miami, FL 33101
In Reply.
In response to Saigal and Whyte, we would agree that there are some methodologic weaknesses in our study. Indeed, we acknowledged these as caveats in our paper. But we will try to clarify the "perplexing problems" raised by Saigal and Whyte.
First, Saigal and Whyte suggest that they did not understand our stratification procedure. Because matching infant-for-infant on critical variables is virtually impossible with neonates in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), stratification is used as a close-to-matching process.