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Advanced Approaches in Nutrition Research for the Preterm Infant

A special issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643). This special issue belongs to the section "Pediatric Nutrition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 September 2023) | Viewed by 4178

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Division of Newborn Medicine, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY 10065, USA
Interests: nutrition of the preterm infant; lipids; fatty acids; metabolomics

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Guest Editor
Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 101 Manning Drive, Campus Box 7596, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA
Interests: pediatrics; newborn; necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC)

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Guest Editor
Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA
Interests: parenteral and enteral nutrition; human milk; necrotizing enterocolitis

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Guest Editor
1. Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology and Developmental Biology, Neonatal Research Center, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
2. Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
Interests: pediatric neonatology; neonatal-perinatal medicine; children nutrition;intestinal failure-associated liver disease; non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); specific liver diseases

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Guest Editor
Division of Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL 60611, USA
Interests: critically ill and preterm neonates; nutrition; breastfeeding; maternal perinatal diet

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Guest Editor
Department of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06443, USA
Interests: infant nutrition; growth; gastrointestinal health; human milk

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Optimal nutritional delivery for the preterm infant has the potential for a multisystem impact unlike any drug. Nutrition and its nutrient composition directly influence growth, organogenesis, and immune development. In this era of Neonatology and advancing scientific technologies, research questions must go beyond macronutrients and calories and address the gaps in our knowledge to define the term "optimal nutrition" across the developmental spectrum and context specificity. It is likely that a 22–23-week preterm infant has different and unique needs from a 32-week preterm infant. It is also likely that an infant with profound morbidities of the lung, eye, or brain will require additional unique considerations for ongoing recovery and function. Finally, it is likely that the composition of the diet will have to be adjusted or supplemented to meet the needs across time and injury. 

To begin this journey of a new era of nutrition research in neonatology, this issue will highlight topics that:

  • deconstruct the longitudinal compositional elements of amniotic fluid and human milk to highlight nutrient needs across development and injury/illness
  • implement novel imaging and laboratory methods to understand nutrient-driven biology
  • biomarkers of nutritional attainment and efficacy
  • develop statistical and bioinformatic tools to meaningfully disentangle the biological meaning behind vast -omic data

Neonatology is still a young field but is advancing rapidly in discovery and in the level of critical care that can be provided to extremely premature infants. The science behind our bedside practices must match this pace to ensure the best outcomes possible for this vulnerable population. Advancing the most fundamental practice, providing sustenance, must be one of them. 

Prof. Dr. Camilia Martin
Dr. Misty L. Good
Prof. Dr. Cynthia L. Blanco
Dr. Kara L. Calkins
Dr. Daniel T. Robinson
Dr. Sarah N. Taylor
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • preterm infant
  • nutrition
  • necrotizing enterocolitis
  • lipidomics
  • metabolomics
  • human milk
  • bioinformatics
  • bronchopulmonary dysplasia
  • neurodevelopment
  • growth

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 1875 KiB  
Article
Human Milk Calorie Guide: A Novel Color-Based Tool to Estimate the Calorie Content of Human Milk for Preterm Infants
by Anish Pillai, Susan Albersheim, Nikoo Niknafs, Brian Maugo, Betina Rasmussen, Mei Lam, Gurpreet Grewal, Arianne Albert and Rajavel Elango
Nutrients 2023, 15(8), 1866; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15081866 - 13 Apr 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2036
Abstract
Fixed-dose fortification of human milk (HM) is insufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of preterm infants. Commercial human milk analyzers (HMA) to individually fortify HM are unavailable in most centers. We describe the development and validation of a bedside color-based tool called the [...] Read more.
Fixed-dose fortification of human milk (HM) is insufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of preterm infants. Commercial human milk analyzers (HMA) to individually fortify HM are unavailable in most centers. We describe the development and validation of a bedside color-based tool called the ‘human milk calorie guide’(HMCG) for differentiating low-calorie HM using commercial HMA as the gold standard. Mothers of preterm babies (birth weight ≤ 1500 g or gestation ≤ 34 weeks) were enrolled. The final color tool had nine color shades arranged as three rows of three shades each (rows A, B, and C). We hypothesized that calorie values for HM samples would increase with increasing ‘yellowness’ predictably from row A to C. One hundred thirty-one mother’s own milk (MOM) and 136 donor human milk (DHM) samples (total n = 267) were color matched and analyzed for macronutrients. The HMCG tool performed best in DHM samples for predicting lower calories (<55 kcal/dL) (AUC 0.87 for category A DHM) with modest accuracy for >70 kcal/dL (AUC 0.77 for category C DHM). For MOM, its diagnostic performance was poor. The tool showed good inter-rater reliability (Krippendorff’s alpha = 0.80). The HMCG was reliable in predicting lower calorie ranges for DHM and has the potential for improving donor HM fortification practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Approaches in Nutrition Research for the Preterm Infant)
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13 pages, 1598 KiB  
Article
Erythrocyte Membrane Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) and Lipid Profile in Preterm Infants at Birth and Over the First Month of Life: A Comparative Study with Infants at Term
by Félix Castillo Salinas, Alicia Montaner Ramón, Félix-Joel Castillo Ferrer, Adrià Domingo-Carnice, Begoña Cordobilla and Joan Carles Domingo
Nutrients 2022, 14(23), 4956; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14234956 - 22 Nov 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1391
Abstract
An observational comparative study was designed to assess the fatty acids profile in erythrocyte membrane phospholipids of 30 preterm neonates (<32 weeks gestation) at birth and after 1 month of life versus a convenience sample of 10 infants born at term. The panel [...] Read more.
An observational comparative study was designed to assess the fatty acids profile in erythrocyte membrane phospholipids of 30 preterm neonates (<32 weeks gestation) at birth and after 1 month of life versus a convenience sample of 10 infants born at term. The panel of fatty acids included the families and components of saturated fatty acids (SFAs), monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), and n-6 and n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) as well as enzyme activity indexes and fatty acids ratios. At birth, the comparison of fatty acid families between preterm and term neonates showed a significantly higher content of SFAs and n-6 PUFAs, and a significantly lower content of MUFAs and n-3 PUFAs in the preterm group. After 30 days of life, significantly higher levels of n-6 PUFAs and significantly lower levels of n-3 PUFAs among preterm neonates persisted. At 30 days of birth, n-6 PUFA/n-3 PUFA and arachidonic acid (ARA) ARA/DHA remained significantly elevated, and DHA sufficiency index significantly decreased in the preterm group. The pattern of n-3 PUFA deficiency at birth and sustained for the first month of life would support the need of milk banking fortified with DHA and the use of DHA supplementation in breastfeeding mothers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Approaches in Nutrition Research for the Preterm Infant)
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