BACKGROUND Significant improvements have occurred in the survival rates of small preterm infants. As more infants survive their preterm birth, the number of parents associated with this experience has also increased. Clearly, the birth of very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) preterm infants poses considerable challenges for all mothers. These challenges are further compounded in Taiwan, where women are...

Very low birth weight (VLBW) preterm infants are vulnerable to growth restriction after discharge due to cumulative protein and energy deficits during their hospital stay and early post-discharge period. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of the preterm infant, post-discharge nutrition (PIN) program to reduce post-discharge growth restriction in Thai VLBW preterm infants. A prospecti...

INTRODUCTION Optimal nutrition is critical in the management of the very low birth weight (VLBW) infant. METHODS The type of feeding, initiation, route and schedule of feeding, and the rate of increase in feeding volume were reviewed. RESULTS Human milk from the preterm infant's mother is the feeding of choice. When full enteral feeding is established, supplementation of human milk with a m...

Paolo Manzoni, MD Matteo Rinaldi, MD Silvia Cattani, MD Lorenza Pugni, MD Mario Giovanni Romeo, MD Hubert Messner, MD Ilaria Stolfi, MD Lidia Decembrino, MD Nicola Laforgia, MD Federica Vagnarelli, MD Luigi Memo, MD Linda Bordignon, MD Onofrio Sergio Saia, MD Milena Maule, PhD, MSc, BSc Elena Gallo, MD Michael Mostert, MD Cristiana Magnani, MD Michele Quercia, MD Lina Bollani, MD Roberto Pedici...

PURPOSE One of the major causes of bowel obstruction in extremely premature infants is a meconium obstruction. However, there are many challenges not only in the recognition and diagnosis, but also in the management of meconium obstruction. This study aimed to find perioperative clinical features and determine the postoperative course of meconium-related ileus in very low birth weight (VLBW) an...

INTRODUCTION Newborn babies in need of critical medical attention are normally admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). These infants tend to be preterm, have low birth weight, and/or have serious medical conditions. Neonatal survival varies, but progress in perinatal and neonatal care has notably diminished mortality rates. In this selected review, we examine and compare the NICU m...

Difference in crude neonatal and infant mortality rates (NMR and IMR) among different countries is due to the differences in its two determinants: birth weight distribution (BWD) and birth weight-specific mortality rates (BW-SMRs). We aimed to determine impact of BWD and BW-SMRs on differences in crude NMR and IMR among Korea, Japan, and the U.S. Our study used the live birth data of the period...

Recent studies have shown that people whose early growth is poor have an increased risk of sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is an important risk factor for falls, but it is not known whether poor early growth is related to falls. The authors investigated this association in the Hertfordshire Cohort Study (1998-2004), where 2,148 participants from the United Kingdom provided their history of falls. Grip s...

Few studies have focused on the association between maternal exercise and outcomes of pregnancy among low-income, Black women. The analysis reported here examines the associations between exercise before and during pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes of preterm birth and low birth weight among a sample of urban, low-income, Black women. Women (N=922) were enrolled in this prospective cohort study ...

Epoprostenol has been the first effective treatment for severe pulmonary arterial hypertension. Epoprostenol is provided in vials for adult therapy. To our knowledge there are no reports on specific dilution protocols for epoprostenol in VLBW infants, when very small infusion rates are required. We describe the dilution protocol we applied to a preterm infant who was born at 30 weeks of gestati...