Abstract

Introduction: Nutrition is “the process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for the health and growth of cells or organisms” [1,2]. Preterm extremely low birth weight infants (ELBW) are born in mid trimester of pregnancy and experience sudden interruption of intrauterine nutrition at birth and delay in establishment of full enteral nutrition in postnatal life. Foetus multiplies in weight five times during last trimester and maximum accretion of nutrients occurs during same period of pregnancy [3] (Fenton 2013). These babies are prone to develop extra uterine growth restriction (EUGR) in early infancy, [4] Embleton 2001. Parenteral nutrition (PN) is a mandatory life saving and nutrition promoting intervention for preventing EUGR, tissue breakdown and achieving optimum nutrition, growth and development until full enteral feeds are established. Hence, assessment of nutritional needs, early aggressive parenteral nutrition and early trophic feeds within 24 of life [5], incremental increase in enteral feeds with extracted fresh human milk, full enteral feeds, breast milk fortification, preterm formula feeds and post discharge plan are crucial in the nutritional management of extremely low birth weight infants.

Methods: A Boolean literature search conducted in February 2022 through online databases - PubMed, Web of Science (WOS), Google Scholar, Cochrane library, Researchgate and manual search for scientific articles and texts with the title topic and keywords - preterm infants, nutrition, needs, requirements and management. The retrieved articles were screened with title and abstract for interested study research title. Retrieved 33 articles from PubMed, 10 from Cochrane library, 27 from WOS, 6 from Google scholar, 2 from researchgate and 12 from other sources. Articles were also searched through citations and references from collected study articles. Study restricted to articles written in English language. The following filters were used in retrieving study articles - free full text articles, Human, Newborn, Systematic reviews, meta-analysis, randomized control trials (RCTs), Clinical trials and Reviews. Animal studies were excluded. The retrieved articles were screened for the interested research title topic after going through the article title and abstract. A total of 32 study papers were analysed.

Results: The collected study papers were narrated with the subheadings - definition, nutritional needs of ELBW infant, TPN, enteral nutrition (minimal enteral nutrition, MEN and nutritional feeds), human milk fortifier, feeding intolerance, nutritional assessment, catch up growth and feeding advice at discharge.

Keywords: Preterm; Infant; Nutrition; Management; Requirements

References

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Citation

Citation: Chakradhar Maddela. “Comprehensive Clinical Approach to Nutritional Management in Preterm Infants: Review Article”. Acta Scientific Paediatrics 5.5 (2022): 65-71.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Chakradhar Maddela. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.