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Improved conditions of care for premature infants have led to markedly increased survival rates over the last few decades, particularly in very low and extremely low birth weight infants. Nutritional measures play a central role in the long-term outcome, health, and quality of life of these premature infants. In this updated and extended edition, leading experts from all over the world present the most recent evidence and critical analyses of nutrient requirements and the practice of nutritional care (with the focus on very low birth weight infants) to provide guidance for clinical application. The chapters of this publication show how growth and development can be nutritionally supported, which nutrients and non-nutrients can be supplied, and how nutritional care can get implemented. Approaches to nutritional care in various disease conditions are also addressed. The compilation of current information and recommendations should support the daily work of health care professionals such as neonatologists, paediatricians, other physicians involved in the care of preterm infants, nurses, nutritionists/dieticians, and others. The current book is also of interest for researchers who wish to keep up to date in this moving field.

Improved conditions of care for premature infants have led to markedly increased survival rates over the last few decades, particularly in very low and extremely low birth weight infants. Nutritional measures play a central role in the long-term outcome, health and quality of life of these premature infants. In this publication, leading experts from all 5 continents present the most recent evidence and critical analyses of nutrient requirements and the practice of nutritional care (with the focus on very low birth weight infants) to provide guidance for clinical application. After the introductory chapters, covering nutritional needs and research evidence in a more general manner, topics such as amino acids and proteins, lipids, microminerals and vitamins, parenteral and enteral nutrition as well as approaches to various disease conditions are addressed. Due to its focus on critical appraisals and recommendations, this book is of interest not only for the researcher who wants to keep up to date, but also for the clinician faced with premature infants in his practice.

Adequate nutrition is especially important during infancy and childhood, where even short periods of malnutrition have long-lasting effects on growth, development and health in adult life. There are several high-risk scenarios for the development of malnutrition, which are the focus of the current publication: Atopic diseases, gastrointestinal disorders, and preterm delivery. For the pediatric allergist it is important to understand the mechanisms regulating IgE responses to food proteins since they may also be the earliest markers for the atopic march. As breastfeeding seems to have only limited effects regarding the atopic march, other measures to modulate infantile immune responses have to be taken, including the use of hypoallergenic formulae or the addition of probiotics or prebiotics to infant formulae. The second part of this book highlights the functional properties of nutrition with regard to diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and the ensuing chronic alterations of gastrointestinal function. Topics addressed include the molecular basis of some diseases, main causes of and nutritional measures in chronic enteropathy, including the role of parenteral and enteral nutrition, stressed mucosa and the role of nutrition in cholestatic liver disease. Nowadays, smaller and more immature infants are surviving - but the smaller the infant, the greater the accrued deficit as nutritional needs change with advancing maturity, and one formulation may not meet all requirements. Furthermore, there are no sensitive, accurate and precise measures of nutritional outcome. The net effect of these uncertainties is that all very-low-birth-weight infants are growth retarded at hospital discharge. Strategies for improving growth in these high-risk infants are at the center of the last part of this publication.