Growth Monitoring of Preterm Infants During Stay in the Neonatal Unit and into Early Childhood

Abstract

Monitoring growth is important in preterm infants as they are at a high risk for postnatal growth restriction which can lead to impaired long term growth and neurodevelopment. In the absence of better charts, intrauterine growth charts are recommended by leading professional paediatric organisations for monitoring the growth of preterm infants. The aim when caring for preterm infants is to at least match the growth velocity from published best postnatal growth charts and strive towards reaching ideal growth velocities from intrauterine growth charts. The Fenton chart appears to be suitable for monitoring growth of preterm infants during their stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Recently, Fenton charts have been updated using the WHO 2006 charts for the 40–50 weeks’ post conception age group. Once a post-conception age of 40 weeks is reached, the WHO 2006 growth charts can be used for monitoring ongoing growth. The ongoing “Intergrowth-21st study” has the potential to overcome the deficiencies of all current growth charts. It will enable the establishment of prescriptive growth charts for monitoring the growth of preterm infants during and beyond their NICU stay into early childhood. Care should be taken to avoid excessive catch up growth which is associated with increased risk of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity in later life.