Hyperkalemia in very low birth weight infants

Pattern of daily weights among low birth weight neonates in the neonatal intensive care unit: data from a multihospital health-care system

“…However, the actual weight data for the patients <1500 g was not original, but was used with permission from the Wright publication, 3 and the data for patients 1600-2600 g was used from the Shaffer publication. 2 Also, the extensions of the 4 the Ehrenkranz grid predicts an initial weight loss, but it predicts a smaller proportion of loss, 7-10%, than the previous grids. Similar to the three previous grids, the Ehrenkranz grid predicts that this initial weight loss will be regained after 11-17 days.…”

“…1 The Dancis chart was an important standard for many years, but because few patients <1000 g were included, the chart became less useful as smaller neonates were successfully cared for in NICUs. In 1987 Shaffer et al 2 published an updated postnatal weight grid, using data from neonates as small as 700 g birth weight. In 1993 Wright et al 3 published a new postnatal weight chart for neonates less than 1500 g at birth, extending the data to 105 days after birth.…”

“…2,3,5 Specifically, among various birth weight categories, we sought to compare; (1) the percentage of body weight predicted to be lost at the nadir, (2) the number of days predicted to regain birth weight, (3) the number of days predicted to gain 100 g above birth weight, and (4) the number of days predicted to gain 300 g above birth weight. The IHC Institutional Review Board approved the study.…”

“…In 1948 Dancis et al 1 published the first widely used grid for charting serial weights of NICU patients. Periodic updates of the Dancis-type postnatal weight grid have been published by Shaffer et al, 2 Wright et al, 3 Lair and Kennedy, 4 and Ehrenkranz et al 5 Each of those grids predicts an initial weight loss of 5-20% of birth weight, with the largest percentage losses among the smallest patients. Those grids also predict regaining birth weight after 9-17 days, with greatest number of days required by the smallest patients.…”

“…[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] On the basis of these, we hypothesized that NICU patients cared for currently have more rapid weight gain than are displayed on the commonly used postnatal grids. [2][3][4][5] To test this we collected, from electronic records, all daily weights of all patients with birth weights 400-2600 g, born during a 30-month period, January 1, 2003-June 30, 2005, cared for in any the NICU's of the Intermountain Health Care (IHC) System. We then compared the patterns of weight change predicted by the present vs previous grids.…”