Postnatal Growth and Evaluation of the Nutritional Status of Very Preterm Infants: Implications for the Present and the Future

Dear Colleagues,

Evaluation of nutritional status and growth of very preterm infants remains an unsolved question. Extrauterine growth restriction is still a prevalent condition in the NICU, and it has been related with worse outcomes during hospitalization and in the follow-up of these patients. However, a consensus definition of this condition is still lacking, and different methods and growth curves have been used to monitor growth and adjust nutritional intakes during hospitalization. Adequacy of growth and nutritional intake should also be judged on the basis of body composition, but it is not clear which current methods for assessment at the patient’s bedside could be widely used to help in the decision-making process. Serum levels of different indicators are used for nutritional monitoring in adults or children, but they show little correlation with intakes in the neonatal period. The field of metabolomics might be promising in the identification of new markers to identify babies at risk of malnutrition. All these difficulties are even more challenging in those patients born after a period of intrauterine growth restriction. The impact of nutrition and growth in clinical outcomes during admission is widely recognized, and there is some evidence regarding long-term consequences, where the advantage of better neurodevelopment related to better early growth and nutrition has to be balanced with the potential risk for adverse metabolic outcomes. Papers related to these issues are welcome to be submitted.

Dr. Oscar Garcia-Algar
Dr. Giorgia Sebastiani
Guest Editors

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