Postnatal growth curves for extremely low birth weight infants with early enteral nutrition

Abstract

Our early fed infants achieved better weight gain than those recently published receiving late enteral nutrition, but nevertheless fell below the 10th percentile of intrauterine curves. Which postnatal growth is ideal for extremely low birth weight infants infants is unclear. Our growth curves should not be taken as reference curves of a "normal population" but may help to identify infants with growth failure.

Individualized fortification of breast milk in 41 Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) preterm infants

“…However, the result could be influenced by the lesser severity of illness, as stated by the same authors. The curve of intrauterine growth does not reflect the real postnatal growth of the ELBWs: it expresses the situation of the fetus at birth and does not take into account the variables that influence the growth of these patients after their birth, such as for example severe clinical conditions, metabolic alterations such as hypernatremia, hyperglycemia, acidosis, persistent ductus arteriosus and parenteral nutrition [27].…”

Growth of Preterm Born Children

“…Separate growth references for infants with parenteral and/or early nutrition have been suggested [39, 56], but generally the charts of birth weight, length and head circumference for gestational age are used. Postnatal growth failure has been defined as weight below the 10th centile at 36 weeks corrected gestational age [41], or as a decrease in z-score of >2 between birth and 36 weeks corrected gestational age [57].…”

Head size and growth in the very preterm infant: a literature review

“…Eighteen 6,[9][10][11][12][13][17][18][19][21][22][23]25,28,29,34,38,41 of the 34 studies included were multicentered in nature, improving the generalizability of results. More than half of the 34 papers meeting inclusion criteria were prospective observational studies 7,8,[10][11][12][13]15,17,[19][20][21][22][23]27,28,32,33,35,41,42 and were therefore subject to a number of confounding factors.…”

“…Cheong et al 7 recruited infants with a birth weight of ,1,250 g or ,30 weeks' gestation; however, the mean gestational age of subjects in that study was 27.4 weeks, with SD of 1.9 weeks, and therefore it is unlikely to have included many infants of .32 weeks. Eight studies 6,11,21,25,28,29,36,38 accounted for size differences between different ethnic and racial groups, while social factors were considered in 15 studies. 7,8,10,[12][13][14]17,18,21,25,27,28,30,34,36 WHO standards suggest one set of growth curves is appropriate for children throughout the globe; however, this may underestimate the rate of microcephaly and overestimate the rate of large head size in Western European countries.…”