The long term effect of underdeveloped lungs in prem babies

[TortoiseInAShell]

My baby was premature but not a huge amount like some people experience, only born at 35 weeks. However, it was premature enough for me to have to receive the steroid injection before baby was born, to help protect his lungs.

For about 5 months every winter since we've had countless steroid courses for his lungs, usually due to croup and various respiratory infections. Sometimes he will have antibiotics as well, but mostly just a course of oral steroids.

My understanding was that you can expect this for the first couple of years in a baby born early. But my SIL keeps repeatedly undermining this by telling my family that I am wrong, in her expert opinion there is no correlation between premature babies and chest problems in the first few winters. Yesterday she was going on about how my baby wasn't all that early either, making it sound like I was especially being a PFB parent, even though this is not my first baby!

Has anyone else heard of this? I know gp's aren't always right but SIL keeps batting down what I am passing on to my family and making me look like I am making a mountain out of a molehill when all I am doing is passing on what I've been told by a GP.

Does anyone else have experience of mild prematurity that affected he developing lungs for a few winters? I am starting to doubt myself

with all due respect your Sil is newly qualified and still lacks experience. Also if she works on a nicu, she may gave experience with car of a premature baby but she will have very little experience of ongoing care once babies are discharged.
I work on a Paediatric ICU and we certainly see a disproportionate number of children with respiratory issues who were prem babies. The lungs continue to develop and mature into childhood, so problems usually reduce as they get older and mature but I have seen ex prems of all gestational ages who certainly seem to be hit harder by respiratory viruses and take longer to get off ventilators than term babies on the whole.

I also work on paeds icu and agree with everything in the above post. In my experience, as the really really prem babies get paluvizimab injections it is actually the late preterm babies(31 to 35 weeks) who tend to have a hard time of it on icu over the winter.
Of course kids born at term can have all sorts of lung conditions like asthma and also, regardless of gestation, having a nasty bout of bronchiolitis in the first few months of life can predispose kids to being wheezy with viruses for the next couple of years.
So your little one's chestiness may be nothing to do with his gestation but there is a definite correlation between babies born early and chest problems in the first few years. If there wasn't, the nhs wouldn't spend up to 4k a child on injections to prevent bronchiolitis in ex prems

I think it might be one factor, but not the only factor, so you're both right I suppose (imo but definitely not an expert!). I'd had the injections before having twins at 27 weeks, and touch wood, they've never had any chest problems, other than my DS being a wheezer. That was put down to H's asthmatic tendancies rather than any prematurity. DS was ventilated for 24 hours, both had CPAP, both on oxygen for several weeks.

I think the likelihood of developing chest issues is a combination of genetics / prematurity / maybe treatment in NICU as Sally says above / whether they're breastfed, extent they're with other children (siblings / nursery etc).