Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Adriana Gonçalves de; SIQUEIRA, Pollyanna Patriota  and  ABREU, Luiz Carlos de. Nutritional care of very low birth weight preterm infants. Rev. bras. crescimento desenvolv. hum. [online]. 2008, vol.18, n.2, pp. 148-154. ISSN 0104-1282.

INTRODUCTION: the nutritional aim in the approach to the newborn with very low weight is to achieve post-natal growth at a rate that is similar to the intra-uterine growth and weight gain of a normal fetus of the same gestational age, without producing nutritional deficiencies, undesirable metabolic effects or toxicities resulting from excessive nutritional supply. OBJECTIVE: to describe state-of-the-art nutrition in preterm infants with very low weight. Method: We consulted the databases of Medline and SciELO. The search strategy used in MEDLINE were the keywords nutrition AND birth OR prematurity OR very low birth weight infants, and in SciELO, the terms nutrition in newborn AND prematurity AND very low birth weight infants AND nutritional status in all fields. RESULTS:the articles were classified according to type: review, original article, case report, opinion and editorial (N = 16) and formed the premise of the study. We considered studies of qualitative and quantitative nature. The articles listed from 1 to 4 were used to define newborns with very low weight, small for gestational age and physiological characterization of prematurity. CONCLUSION: the early onset of nutrition, both oral and parenteral, and nutrition assessment are essential to ensure appropriate neuropsychomotor growth and development and to avoid future sequels in newborns with very low birth weight.

Keywords : Nutrition; Very low birth weight infants; Preterm infants; Nutrition assessment.

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