Strategies in Neonatal Care to Promote Growth and Neurodevelopment of the Preterm Infant

Abstract

Recommendations for nutrition of very preterm and very low birth weight infants have developed over time with our understanding of the requirements of preterm babies and the awareness of widespread poor postnatal growth. In general, the trend has been towards enhancing nutrition, but more recent recommendations have begun to raise questions with respect to the potential for high and early nutritional intakes, particularly of protein, to carry risks such as refeeding syndrome. However, large gaps in our knowledge remain for both macro- and micronutrient requirements to support optimal growth and how nutrition and growth relate to important long-term outcomes. Closing these knowledge gaps has been hampered by inconsistent reporting of nutrition intakes and growth parameters, small trials with short-term outcomes and the use of a variety of different methods of monitoring growth. The challenge now is for future research to address these issues through consensus building around the important questions that need to be answered, how to report data from neonatal nutritional trials and whether large trials answering important questions can take place through development of consortia that undertake similar trials in multiple jurisdictions with agreements to share data.