Preterm infants

BACKGROUND: Most moderate-to-late-preterm infants need nutritional support until they are feeding exclusively on their mother's breast milk. Evidence to guide nutrition strategies for these infants is lacking. METHODS: We conducted a multicenter, factorial, randomized trial involving infants born at 32 weeks 0 days' to 35 weeks 6 days' gestation who had intravenous access and whose mothers intended to breast-feed. Each infant was assigned to three interventions or their comparators: intravenous amino acid solution (parenteral nutrition) or dextrose solution until full feeding with milk was established; milk supplement given when maternal milk was insufficient or mother's breast milk exclusively with no supplementation; and taste and smell exposure before gastric-tube feeding or no taste and smell exposure...

BACKGROUND: Preterm neonates are extensively monitored to require strict oxygen target attainment for optimal outcomes. In daily practice, detailed oxygenation data are hardly used and crucial patterns may be missed due to the snapshot presentations and subjective observations. This study aimed to develop a web-based dashboard with both detailed and summarized oxygenation data in real-time and to test its feasibility to support clinical decision making. METHODS: Data from pulse oximeters and ventilators were synchronized and stored to enable real-time and retrospective trend visualizations in a web-based viewer...

PURPOSE: To search the relationship between serum neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR), and systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) values with the development of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) and the requirement for laser treatment. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study was carried out with 195 preterm infants between 2012 and 2023. The NLR, PLR, LMR, and SII values were calculated on both the first day and at the end of the first month after birth...

UNLABELLED: Poor growth and nutrition management in the neonatal period can have a negative impact upon both the short- and long-term outcomes for the infant. Improvements in bioelectrical impedance technology and accompanying licencing agreements now make this enhanced device available for use in infants as small as 23 weeks gestational age. An exploration of this technology and its use is now timely. The aim of the scoping review was to answer the following question: in preterm and sick term infants in the neonatal intensive care unit, how is bioelectrical impedance being utilized, in what situations, and when? The scoping review was conducted using Arksey and O'Malley's (Int J Soc Res Methodol 8(1):19-32, 2005) framework...

In this study, we analyse the influence of nutrition during the early neonatal period on the development and prevention of atopic dermatitis (AD) in children with a history of very low birth weight (VLBW). A retrospective cohort study was performed of VLBW preterm infants to assess the risk of their developing AD during childhood, according to nutrition with breastmilk and/or probiotic supplementation during the neonatal period. The analysis focused on nutritional and early childhood follow-up data for 437 newborns, of whom 184 received probiotics up to 36 weeks postmenstrual age...

OBJECTIVE: To study the postnatal growth at 64 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA) in preterm neonates born at ≤ 34 weeks gestational age. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted between August, 2019 and November, 2021, wherein, we took anthropometric measurements of neonates (delivered at ≤ 34 weeks' gestation) at 64 (± 2) weeks PMA. The rapidity of postnatal growth was categorized according to change in the z-score of anthropometric measures, viz, weight-for-age, length-for-age and head circumference-for-age, between birth and 64 weeks PMA...

AIMS: The New Zealand National Intestinal Failure and Rehabilitation Service (NZ-NIFRS) was established in October 2015 to gather longitudinal data on the aetiology, clinical course and outcomes of children with intestinal failure (IF). One main objective is to achieve health equity for patients with IF in NZ. METHODS: Clinical outcomes (enteral autonomy, parenteral nutrition (PN) dependence, death or intestinal transplantation) for IF patients diagnosed from October 2015 to 2018 were analysed; comparisons were made by ethnicity and socio-economic status (SES) using published 'prioritised-ethnicity' health data and the NZ index of deprivation, respectively...

Preterm birth affects about 10% of all live births with many resultant health challenges, including metabolic bone disease of prematurity (MBDP) which is characterized by elevated alkaline phosphatase, suppressed phosphate, and deficient skeletal development. Because of the lack of an animal model, very little is known about bone structure, strength, and quality after preterm birth. This study investigated the utility of a pig model to replicate clinical features of preterm birth, including MBDP, and sought to determine if early postnatal administration of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 was an effective treatment...

Welcome Family is a universal, short-term nurse home visiting program designed to promote optimal maternal and infant physical and mental well-being and provide an entry point into the early childhood system of care to all families with newborns up to 8 weeks old living in defined communities in Massachusetts. The present study examines whether: 1) Welcome Family meets its goal of successfully connecting families to two early childhood programs-evidence-based home visiting (EBHV) and early intervention (EI)-relative to families with similar background experiences who do not participate in Welcome Family, and 2) whether these impacts are conditional on families' race and ethnicity and their primary language-two characteristics that are related to structural racism and health inequities...

Despite the global improvements in neonatal outcomes, mortality and morbidity rates among preterm infants are still unacceptably high. Therefore, it is crucial to thoroughly analyze the factors that affect these outcomes, including sex, race, and social determinants of health. By comprehending the influence of these factors, we can work towards reducing their impact and enhancing the quality of neonatal care. This review will summarize the available evidence on sex differences, racial differences, and social determinants of health related to neonates...

The neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm infants can be stratified based on the level of prematurity. We explored brain structural networks in extremely preterm (EP; < 28 weeks of gestation) and very-to-late (V-LP; ≥ 28 and < 37 weeks of gestation) preterm infants at term-equivalent age to predict 2-year neurodevelopmental outcomes. Using MRI and diffusion MRI on 62 EP and 131 V-LP infants, we built a multimodal feature set for volumetric and structural network analysis...

INTRODUCTION: Our aim was to determine which foetal or neonatal growth curves discriminate the probability of dying of newborns with low birth weight for their gestational age (small for gestational age, SGA) and sex (weight < 10th percentile) and to establish the curves that are presumably most useful for monitoring growth through age 10 years. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The analysis included every neonate (15 122) managed in our hospital (2013-2022) and all neonates born preterm before 32 weeks (6913) registered in the SEN1500 database (2019-2022)...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Parental guidance is essential for supporting parental involvement, maintaining the quality and safety of infant care, and limiting parental stress. The efficiency of a new tool to support parental empowerment - "Step by step with my baby" - was evaluated. The perception of this tool by parents and nurses was studied. METHODS: This was a prospective, observational study conducted from September 2019 to December 2020 at a level-3 neonatal center...

It is unclear whether there is any postnatal abnormality in brainstem auditory function in late preterm small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infants. We investigated the functional integrity of the brainstem auditory pathway at 4 months after term in late preterm SGA infants and defined differences from appropriate-for-gestational age (AGA) infants. The maximum length sequence brainstem evoked response (MLS BAER) was recorded and analyzed in 24 SGA (birthweight < 3rd centile) infants and 28 AGA infants (birthweight > 10th centile)...

BACKGROUND: Multifocal infantile hemangiomas (IHs) are focal cutaneous lesions affecting more than 1 anatomic site. The multifocal distribution pattern is the rarest form of IH manifestation, accounting for only 3-4% of all affected infants. This type of cutaneous IHs may be a marker for extracutaneous disease, with the liver being the most frequently affected organ. METHODS: We investigated the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of a small case series of infants with multifocal IHs presenting with different clinical patterns, all diagnosed and treated in a regional tertiary-care pediatric clinic...

BACKGROUND: Post-hemorrhagic hydrocephalus (PHH), a common complication of severe intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) in very low birth weight (BW) infants, is associated with significant morbidity and poor neurological outcomes. The objective of this study was to assess the current status of PHH and analyze the risk factors associated with the necessity of treatment for PHH in infants born between 22 and 28 weeks of gestation, specifically those with severe IVH (grade 3 or 4). METHODS: The analysis was conducted on 1,097 infants who were born between 22-28 gestational weeks and diagnosed with severe IVH, using data from the Korean Neonatal Network...

INTRODUCTION: The association between neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) related stress in preterm infants and their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in the first year following preterm birth remains unexplored. Understanding this association is crucial for enhancing preventive and supportive measures for infants and parents within and beyond the NICU. METHODS: From a single center observational cohort study, we included infants with gestational ages below 30 weeks and/or birth weights under 1,000 grams...

Breastfeeding is the cornerstone of child and maternal health. However, maternal breast problems during breastfeeding have been frequently reported as one of the reasons for early discontinuation of breastfeeding. Despite the importance of having knowledge on breast problems magnitude and its associated factors in the clinical practices and designing effective interventions, there is limited data on this topic. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors of breast problem among postnatal lactating women in Legambo district, south wollo zone, North East Ethiopia, in 2022...

OBJECTIVE: Caffeine is widely used in preterm infants to prevent or treat apnoea of prematurity. Adverse gastrointestinal effects of caffeine have not been thoroughly researched in preterm infants. With this systematic review and meta-analysis, we aim to summarise the results of trials on the gastrointestinal effects of caffeine in preterm infants. DESIGN: We searched MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus and ClinicalTrials.gov up to 21 April 2023. We included randomised controlled trials assessing caffeine versus placebo in preterm neonates and reporting gastrointestinal side effects...

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