Nutrition & Feeding

Is there any role of DHA supplements in preterm babies especially ELBW

When an ELBW neonate is on Amino acid infusion what is the upper limit of blood Urea that must be considered before stopping or reducing the amino acid infusion

This is an illustrative example of social inequalities - how breastfeeding rates vary by socioeconomic/-demographic factors in the UK. What do you think about it? My personal thoughts - the neonatal community need to be aware and take this into account when counseling etc, but (IMHO) this boils down political strategies how to overcome societal gaps (so a difficult perspective!) And (again IMHO), this is not UK-specific results, they are probably generalizable to most context (Sweden, for sure!) ADC Fetal & Neonatal EditionAssociation between maternal sociodemographic characteris...Objective To ascertain the sociodemographic and geographical determinants of exclusive …

I wanted to share a link to a short survey done by Sara Bjurman, a fellows I supervise. It only takes a few minutes to complete and the link is https://forms.office.com/e/0rbYem4Bwg Find the intro-info below:

I came across this paper about "colostrum-kits", that a structured way of informing mothers before risk deliveries about colostrum and how to express it, can shorten the time it takes to first colostrum feeding. (link below) Would be interesting to hear from you all if/how you do this in your NICUs. https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1186/s13006-024-00682-5

Good time for all! Dear colleagues, we are talking about preterm, late preterm, early term babies, and it’s very important for everybody. But the babies with gestational age about 42+ weeks are without our attention. We observed two babies with serious hypoglycemia (0,1 mmol/l) with seizures at 3 days of life, which we explained by transient hyperinsulinism associated with post term age. Seizures rapidly stopped by intravenous glucose infusion without any complications. Intravenous glucose 10% 12-8- 6 mg/kg/min infusion was 3 h, oral 20% 2 ml/kg hourly 6 h, and didn’t use after 9 hours of start with normal glucose blood tests. Both babies were on breas…

An interesting paper came on my radar, about the importance of a structured nutrition strategy for preterm infant (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378378224002202) It is a single-center experience in Budowice in the Czech Republic, comparing the time before and after a "nutrition care bundle" was introduced. In short, the bundle consisted of following changes: parenteral nutrition strategy targeted individualized fortification of breast milk (using software-based nutrient calculation system) anthropometric dynamics (z-score) weekly multidisciplinary nutrition round max total volume/kg/day was changed from 180 -> …

Many colleagues would be aware of the recent lawsuit in Illinois against Mead Johnson alleging Enamel causing NEC in a preterm baby which the US Court found in the family's favour with an award of $60 million. Whilst the allegation that any cow's milk-based formula CAUSES NEC (rather than saying that human milk protects against NEC) may not be widely held view here, I wondered if colleagues are seeing any fallout from this lawsuit. Clearly this would raise parental concerns and the professionals would find it difficult to recommend any cow's milk-based formula for a preterm baby if the mother can not or does not wish to provide her own breast milk.

I wanted to share an interesting paper from the UK, about the costs of operating a human milk bank. Donor human milk is what most of us prefer before preterm formula, until there is mother's own milk, so the interest in banking seems to be increasing. There is even a European Milk Bank Association. We run a relatively large milk bank in our hospital, serving the four NICUs in Stockholm with donor milk (our NICU + three Karolinska NICUs), I think our milk bank handles a few qubic meters of donor milk (few 1000 liters) per year. The paper below is from the UK and they surveyed all UK Milk Banks (but all did not reply) about the costs. The results? The total a…

Good afternoon 99ers, With a more focussed approach to starting Fortifier, we are encountering the challenge of adding Anti Reflux (AR) (alginate) supplements at the appropriate juncture. Does your Unit add Fort & AR in the same feed or do you work out a feeding regime that keeps these supplements separate? How early (ml/kg/day) are you introducing Fortifier? Thank you for your thoughts/opinions All the very best Al