PSS: NICU and NPST demonstrated adequate psychometric properties in a large sample of Italian mothers. The need for a psychologically informed support to NICU mothers is suggested.
The importance of sleep in the development is only now beginning to be understood: sleep and established sleep cycles have an important role in the normal neurosensory and cortex development. The biological basis of sleep organization has been highlighted by several studies however environmental differences can affect the sleep patterns in preterm infants in the NICU. Sleep disorders are related to several physiological conditions but it is important to know the relationship between sleep organization and neurocognitive and socio-emotional outcomes. From the recent literature it is possible to find out potentially better practices that preserve and promote infant sleep in the NICU.
A retrospective review was taken of 150 newborns with seizures evaluated at the same medical center and by the same investigator(s) from 1982 to 1987. The aims of the study were to determine in this current population the distribution of clinical seizure types, the distribution of causative etiologies, and the relation of etiology to the timing of onset of the seizures. Seizures were classified as subtle, multifocal clonic, generalized tonic, focal clonic, and myoclonic. Subtle (65% of total) and multifocal clonic seizures (54% of total) were the most common seizure types. Subtle seizures usually occurred in combination with other seizure types. Only one seizure type was related to gestational age, i.e., focal clonic seizures in the term infant. Hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (65% of total) was by far the most common etiology in both preterm and term infants. Seizures with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy occurred characteristically early in the neonatal period, i.e., 90 percent in the first 2 days of life. Moreover, 80 percent of all seizures in the first 2 days of life were related to hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy.
This report presents the interim results up to 12 mo corrected age (c.a.) of a multicentric, prospective, controlled study on very low‐birthweight infants, randomized at 40 wk post‐conception in two different groups of formula feeding: 80 Kcal/dL (group A) vs 70 Kcal/dL (group B) up to 55 wk of postconceptional age. Subsequently, all the babies were fed with a follow‐on formula, with the introduction of solid foods at 6 mo c.a. Weight, length, head circumference and neurological conditions with psychomotor development (evaluated by the Griffiths’Developmental Scale) were measured at regular intervals and all of these parameters were satisfactory in both groups. For growth, in group A there was a greater increase in weight in boys at 55 wk and at 6 mo c.a., and small for gestational age (SGA) babies had a greater increase in length at 1 y of age, while head circumference caught up on growth from week 40 to week 55. Measured by the Griffiths’Developmental Scale, the SGA group fed 80 Kcal/dL had a better score at 6 mo; similarly boys fed 80 Kcal/dL had a better score at 6 and at 9 mo.
Conclusion: Nutrition of very low birthweight infants post‐discharge could have an influence on physical growth and on neurodevelopmental outcome. This interim report needs to be confirmed at the end of the study.
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