BACKGROUND Little is known about the growth of VLBW infants in South Africa. The aim of this study was to assess the growth of a cohort of VLBW infants in Johannesburg. METHODS A secondary analysis of a prospective cohort was conducted on 139 VLBW infants (birth weight ≤ 1500 g) admitted to Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital. Growth measurements were obtained from patient files a...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether treatment of trichomoniasis increases the risk of prematurity. DESIGN Sub-analysis of a randomised trial. SETTING We analysed data from HPTN trial of antenatal and intrapartum antibiotics to reduce chorioamnionitis-related perinatal HIV transmission. SUBJECTS Pregnant women from four sites in Africa. OUTCOME MEASURES Gestational age at the time of deliver...

In our previous study, we have demonstrated that peak inspiratory pressure over birth weight (PIP/kg) and mean airway pressure over birth weight (MAP/kg) were more significant risk factors for the development of neonatal chronic lung disease (CLD) than PIP and MAP. We aimed to develop a scoring method using the modified respiratory variables (SMUMRV) to predict CLD at early postnatal period. Fr...

Breast milk is the normal way to feed infants and is accepted worldwide as the optimal first source of nutrition. Though the majority intend to breastfeed, many mothers of sick, hospitalized newborns, particularly those of very low birth weight, are unable to provide a full volume of milk due to numerous physical and emotional barriers to breastfeeding. This vulnerable population of infants may...

OBJECTIVE We sought to determine the correlates of intent to breastfeed and of successful lactation and nursing at the breast in mothers of very low birth weight (VLBW; <1.5 kg) infants. METHODS We conducted a prospective observational study of 119 mothers of singleton VLBW infants (mean birth weight: 1056 g; mean gestational age: 28 weeks), 87 (73%) of whom intended to breastfeed. Mothers co...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to determine if birth outcomes for Medicaid recipients were improved with participation in the Illinois Family Case Management Program. METHODS Health program data files were linked with the 1996 Illinois Vital Records linked birth-death certificate file. Logistic regression was used to characterize the variation in birth outcomes as a function of Fami...

Forty-five children born extremely preterm and/or with extremely low birth weight (ELBW), who were of average intelligence, were assessed at age 7-9 on a raft of measures of executive function (EF) designed to assess inhibition, set shifting, planning, fluency, and working memory. Relative to 45 full-term controls, the preterm/ELBW children showed reliable impairments of inhibition, fluency, an...

OBJECTIVES We examined whether adults born preterm at very low birth weight (VLBW; <1500 g) differ from term-born adults in autism-spectrum traits, and whether among VLBW adults, growth in infancy is associated with these traits. METHODS A total of 110 VLBW and 104 term-born adults of the Helsinki Study of Very Low Birth Weight Adults completed the Autism-Spectrum Quotient yielding total, soc...

The problem of sodium balance in low birth weight infants In this issue of Jornal de Pediatria, Tanaka et al. publish results of their detailed study to assess the influence of fortification of banked human breast milk feeding on urinary fractional excretion of sodium, specific gravity and osmolality.1 To our knowledge, no study in very low birth weight infants to date has examined strict sodiu...

BACKGROUND The International Network for Evaluating Outcomes in Neonates (iNeo) is a collaboration of population-based national neonatal networks including Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Israel, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. The aim of iNeo is to provide a platform for comparative evaluation of outcomes of very preterm and very low birth weight neonates at the national, sit...