Gestational Age Infants

Abstract: The aim of this study was to evaluate the growth of infants born small for gestational age (SGA) as a result of 2 different feeding regimens during their hospital stay. A retrospec-tive chart review was performed at 2 hospitals to assess the growth of 42 SGA infants (gestational age: median 37 weeks; range, 30-41 weeks) from birth up to 18 months corrected age. At one hospital, infants were fed according to a proactive nutrition regimen stipulat-ing 200 mL milk/kg per day from day 2 to achieve better weight gain. At the other hospital, milk volumes were grad-ually increased to 170 mL/kg per day by day 9. Infants fed according to the proactive regimen had lower weight loss and regained their birth weight earlier but did not show better catch-up growth subsequently. The premature SGA infants (n = 20) showed catch-up growth before 40 weeks postmenstrual age. The lower the gestational age at birth, the less negative standard devia-tion score for length up to a corrected age of 18 months. Although infants fed according to a proactive regi-men with liberal volumes of milk dur-ing the first days had lower weight loss and regained their birth weight earlier, no evidence was found that this would result in a different pattern of growth in later life