By Lisa Rapaport (Reuters Health) – Even preemies who receive breathing treatments to improve lung function early in life may have respiratory challenges as children and adolescents, an Australian study suggests. When researchers examined data on about 300 extremely small, low birth weight babies, they found these early arrivals were much more likely to have small airway obstruction at ages 8 and 18 than a group of 260 otherwise similar babies who were born full-term and normal size. Furthermore, the preemies had a greater increase in small airway obstruction between ages 8 and 18, compared with full-term babies.