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Researchers seeking insight on the association between postnatal growth and neurodevelopment of extremely preterm infants have found it – in Switzerland.
A new study of 1,049 infants born under 28 weeks’ gestation in Swiss hospitals shows that looking to postnatal growth to predict neurodevelopmental outcomes during infancy might be less accurate than previously thought.
The team of researchers analyzed these infants’ growth and development data from two key time periods: birth to hospital discharge and hospital discharge until two years of age. In neither period did they find that growth was associated with impaired neurodevelopment.
Nevertheless, the research team stressed that important questions about optimal growth remain unanswered:
“Nutritional status in preterm infants is very complex and measuring growth in grams and centimeters describes growth only quantitatively, but not qualitatively. Assessment of lean body mass or supply of micronutrients might give additional information.”
Read their full findings here in the European Journal of Pediatrics (‘Association of growth with neurodevelopment in extremely low gestational age infants: a population-based analysis’).
Interested in keeping current on news like this from co-author Professor and Dr. of Medicine Giancarlo Natalucci, Director of the Larsson-Rosenquist Centre for Neurodevelopment, Growth and Nutrition of the Newborn, Department of Neonatology, University of Zurich and University Hospital Zurich?