Authors
van Goudoever JB, Koletzko B, Fewtrell MS, Gruszfeld D, Jonat S, Embleton N, Lapillonne A, McNulty A, Szitanyi P
Preterm infants and parents
Healthcare professionals, neonatal units, hospitals, and health services
Formula for preterm infants promotes growth and functional outcomes approaching those of preterm infants fed fortified mother’s milk.
Growth of fetuses in utero is extremely rapid. To match fetal growth, preterm infants born at 24 weeks’ gestation need to double their weight by 30 weeks’ postmenstrual age and be more than five times their birthweight by 40 weeks. This extraordinary growth demands a much higher intake of energy, protein, and other nutrients than is needed by infants born at term. Extremely preterm infants are also born with low stores of key nutrients such as iron, zinc, calcium, and vitamins and with little or no subcutaneous fat and glycogen stores because most placental transfer of nutrients to provide these stores occurs in the third trimester of pregnancy. (1) Adequate nutrition during their stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is pivotal for appropriate growth (2), but the smaller the infant, the greater the challenge in providing optimal early nutrition.
When mother’s own milk or donor milk is not available, preterm formula is the alternative choice, at least for preterm infants born before 34 gestational weeks or with a birth weight of <2000g. Preterm formula should be safe and meet the infant’s requirements as it is usually the sole source of nutrition. The objective of the nutritional management using preterm formula should be to mimic growth, body composition and functional outcomes similar to those of infants born at term. There is evidence that preterm formula, compared to donor milk, increases the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (3), and this is why preterm formula should only be used when breast milk is not available.
N/A
For parents and family
B (High quality)
Patient information sheet1*
For healthcare professionals
B (High quality)
Guideline
B (High quality)
Training documentation
For neonatal unit
B (High quality)
Guideline
B (High quality)
Audit report2
For hospital
B (High quality)
Audit report2
B (High quality)
Training documentation
For health service
B (High quality)
Guideline
1The indicator “patient information sheet” is an example for written, detailed information, in which digital solutions are included, such as web-based systems, apps, brochures, information leaflets, and booklets.
2The indicator “audit report” can also be defined as a benchmarking report.
*The TEG Nutrition very much supports the need of good communication with families and regular sharing of key information, but it is not in favour of sharing information on each standard by a “parent information sheet”, which is the term chosen by the Chair Committee. In our view, sharing multiple parent information sheets bears the risk of overloading families with a plethora of written information during a stressful time period, which may not be very helpful. We suggest to consider other means of sharing information.
For parents and family
N/A
For healthcare professionals
N/A
For neonatal unit
N/A
For hospital
N/A
For health service
B (High quality)
For parents and family
For healthcare professionals
For neonatal unit
For hospital
For health service
November 2018 / 1st edition / next revision: 2023
Recommended citation
EFCNI, van Goudoever JB, Koletzko B et al., European Standards of Care for Newborn Health: The role of preterm formula. 2018.
