Some expensive health-care costs are worth every penny.

A new study from researchers at Michigan State University has found that low birth weight babies – defined as less than 2.2 pounds –are only slightly less productive as adults, in terms of education and salary, than normal-weight babies.

“Our findings suggest that the long-term economic impact of being born at extremely low birth weight [ELBW] is pretty modest for typical survivors,” says John Goddeeris, professor of economics at Michigan State University.

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Similar studies in Denmark, Norway and Sweden have reached the same conclusion about such babies. Sadly, the Michigan State study, published in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics, is one of a very few concerning the long-term economic and educational prospects of low birth weight babies as adults. So many babies of this kind died in the U.S. before the 1980s that it was impossible to draw any conclusions about them.