Growth in the High-Risk Newborn Infant Post-Discharge: Results from a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Nutrition Follow-up Clinic.

Growth in the High-Risk Newborn Infant Post-Discharge: Results from a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Nutrition Follow-up Clinic. Nutr Clin Pract. 2020 Feb 21;: Authors: Zhang X, Donnelly B, Thomas J, Sams L, O'Brien K, Taylor SN, Jump CS Abstract Growth and nutrition in preterm infants have long-term implications for neurodevelopmental and cardiometabolic outcomes. Many infants are discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) with growth restriction, but often without a specialized team to monitor postdischarge growth. At our institution, we addressed our ongoing concerns for the health and growth of these infants post-discharge by creating a Nutrition NICU Graduate Clinic. This clinic serves infants discharged from our NICU who were born with very low birth weight, had difficulty growing or feeding while inpatient, had a gastrostomy tube placed during hospitalization, or were deemed high risk for other reasons by our neonatal team, with the first clinic visit within 5 weeks of discharge. Data from our first 227 patients at time of discharge, first clinic visit, and any available second clinic visits are described. Anthropometrics show a high rate of extrauterine growth restriction at time of discharge with continued growth restriction at follow-up. Feeding regimens prescribed at discharge and variations from the prescribed regimen at time of follow-up are described. At time of first clinic visit, most patients (92.2%) requ...
Source: Nutrition in Clinical Practice - Category: Nutrition Authors: Tags: Nutr Clin Pract Source Type: research