Premature babies pre-disposed to psychiatric problems in teens

My daughter who is now 19 years old is giving me cause for concern as she appears to be suffering from anxiety, depression and is not mixing socially.  She appears to be less confident although intellectually she has done very well.  At the moment I believe she would benefit from cognitive therapy but we are at a loss as to how to proceed.  She worries about everything and is adamant that any little symptom is serious.  We have visiting numerous hospitals in the last 12 months for different ailments.  E.g. MRI as she was worried she may have a brain tumour.  Ultra-Sound Scan for pains in her stomach, both results have thankfully proven negative but we cannot convince her that she is it and well.  If there is anything you can suggest to improve her life and situation I would be so so grateful.

PS. She was born 23 and half weeks gestational age and weighted 1lb 8oz.  

So i notice no one has posted on here in ages, but i feel the need to put something up here... I was born at 27 weeks.. very prem apparently. Im now 26 years old, and i cant believe that i learn now that there may be a valid reason for how i felt as a teenager! I had quite a rough time with depression. I was academic at school, not unattractive,i had a great family life and i think i had no reason to be self conscious or have low self esteem. But i really struggled with depression and anxiety. I was very anti-social as well. But i am so grateful to be completely over it and haven't had a bout in many years. It was very hard at the time, and often i questioned 'why am i like this?' It was as if i had no reason to justify how i felt. It was like i was bad to be feeling this way because surely there was nothing wrong with me. I felt as if was not entitled to be depressed. So i find this article quite interesting and i would agree with most things it says. Thank you

It not true I'm premature my mom had me when she was 5 months pregant and I make lots of friends

Natalie, I am glad that you have not experienced any depression.  You need to keep in mind that one experience, such as yours does not invalidate the statistical evidence of many.  There are always exceptions.  

I was born at 34 weeks and had a good birth weight (5lbs 6 ounces).  I was in the NICU for 2 weeks.  This was back in the early 80's when they did not dim the lights ir allow the mother to hold or touch the baby in the isolette.  They are now trying to make the NICU surroundings as unintrusive and gentle as possible.  You were likely born when they started making changes to the NICU and allowed "Kangaroo Care" with your mother.  The bright lights, loud alarms sounding, the constant probing and lack of physical contact in the NICU was much worse 30 years ago.  It has been shown to contribute to psychological trauma in premature and ill neonates.

I have always been painfully shy, anxious, hypersensitive, had low self esteem and felt depressed. After all these years of being called stupid and a "sook", it is good for me to understand why I feel the way that I do.

I am so appreciative of all the stories posted, we were so grateful that our son made it out of the nicu that we had no idea that there could be other issues as years go by.
He is 12 and having more and more anxiety issues, very shy and confident issues. How can we help him??

Hi.....I was Born 23 weeks and (1lbs 8ounces). I was in the NICU / in the Hospital for 99 days and I'm 16 yrs old right now but I found this article interesting bc I've been suffering from very high anxiety and somewhat depression and mood swings or when my mood drops out of no where. and I thought it was just me but I know now that I'm not alone, also I've been very interested in what being Premature is about and what more problems it brings in the future. Because you see I have ADID which is attention deficit inattentive disorder and I can tell its not very common but I do have some challenges which are Vision, hearing, and learning disability so when I was not even I think two months old I had to get laser eye surgery bc I had so much scarred tissue that if I didn't get it I would be blind today. But I try to push myself daily to become better even with my disabilities and become successful. Plus with me having Anxiety , I got Hand Tremors so I try breathing techniques but it doesn't work very well and I wanted to know what causes me to have them all the time now bc it gets worse. but I hope you guys have a amazing and prosperous day/years and who ever is reading this I hope your life is going great and hopefully you see my name all over the world (for good reasons).   -K.L.S