Optimizing Nutrition for Preterm Newborns

Dear Colleagues,

The aim of nutrition in preterm infants is to administer substrates from the first days of life in order to face the prematurely interrupted placental supply.

This is an important task since optimizing the nutritional status with an earlier and adequate nutrition can result in better growth, respiratory, vision and neurodevelopmental outcomes, while reducing comorbidities of preterm birth.

Nutrition knowledge in neonatology has improved a lot in recent decades, but there are still some topics that need further studies and research.Appropriate nutrition at the beginning of life could have long-term beneficial effects along with changes in the gut microbiome of the preterm newborn infants that could affect the rest of the infant’s life.

Therefore, the nutritional research directions of this Special Issue will include:

• Study of enteral nutrition and human milk fortification (types of fortifiers and timing of administration);
• Possible effects of macro and micromutrients in Parenteral Nutrition(PN) and new potential components of PN;
• Strategies to prevent and early detect macro and micronutrient deficiencies or overload in preterm newborns;
• Special nutritional needs in intrauterine growth retarded newborns and newborns suffering from bronchopulmonary dysplasia, short bowel syndrome and metabolic bone disease;
• Nutrition and neonatal outcomes such as bone growth, gastrointestinal, neurological, vision and respiratory outcomes;
• Long term effects of nutrition at the beginning of life;
• The role of microbiome of newborns in health and disease status.

Dr. Giovanna Verlato
Prof. Dr. Xanthi I. Couroucli
Guest Editors

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