Growth curves for preterm infants
Section snippets
Growth curves for preterm infants
Growth assessment using growth curves is a useful tool for defining health and nutritional status in children [1]. Growth monitoring helps to improve nutrition, educate the care givers and enables early detection of growth disorders. Proper growth monitoring consists of serial assessments of various physical parameters like weight, length/height, head circumference etc over time [2].
Growth monitoring is especially important in preterm infants because several studies have shown that postnatal
Summary and conclusions
There is lot of uncertainty regarding the ideal growth curves for preterm infants. Due to improvements in management of sick preterm infants, the growth of these infants in 1990 and 2000s is different from those of previous years. Hence it is preferable to use the growth curves developed based on preterm infants born after 1990. Intrauterine growth curves represent ideal growth, but may not be feasible given the limitations imposed by the immature gut and other morbidities of prematurity.
Key guidelines
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Updated Babson and Benda’s charts have incorporated the growth parameters from three recent large population samples and appear suitable for monitoring growth of preterm infants until they reach term gestation.
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Once the preterm infants reach term gestation, the recently released WHO growth curves appear appropriate to monitor their ongoing growth.
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While aiming to achieve intrauterine growth rate in postnatal life, one should not lose sight of the adverse effects of overly aggressive nutrition and
In the short term
- 1.
A meta-analysis of all the published intrauterine growth curves from preterm infants born from the year 1990 onwards using appropriate statistical methods to provide a pooled estimate of the intrauterine growth and hence the ideal prescriptive postnatal growth.
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Meta-analysis of all the published postnatal growth curves of preterm infants from 1990 onwards using appropriate statistical methods to arrive at the ‘actually feasible’ growth and the minimum standard required to be achieved.
In the long term
Further
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Cited by (33)
New birthweight charts according to parity and type of delivery for the Spanish population
2017, Gaceta SanitariaCitation Excerpt :These differences are due to biosocial characteristics of the population used as the reference and the study methodology. Thus, it is important to differentiate between reference growth curves and standard growth curves, as Rao and Tompkins4 remember: reference curves show the fetal growth of a particular population at a specific time, while standard curves show how a newborn should grow according to an ideal healthy growth, and hence are of prescriptive nature. Different growth charts by gestational age and sex have been designed for Spanish newborns based on hospital data.5–9
New population curves in spanish extremely preterm neonates
2014, Anales de PediatriaGrowth of preterm and full-term children aged 0-4 years: Integrating median growth and variability in growth charts
2012, Journal of PediatricsCitation Excerpt :Our cohort consisted of >90% Caucasian mothers. However, growth charts for newborns based on data from Caucasian children can also be used for populations of other ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.27,28 Additional research is needed to support this generaliziblilty.
Comparison of intergrowth-21<sup>st</sup> and Fenton curves for evaluation of premature newborns
2022, Revista Brasileira de Saude Materno InfantilHow Should the Preterm Infant Grow?
2020, Current Pediatrics ReportsNew Australian birthweight centiles
2020, Medical Journal of Australia
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