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Over a period of 24 years, 23 women who had undergone renal transplantation gave birth to 26 children whose gestational ages were above 28 weeks. The average duration of stable kidney function tests before the onset of pregnancy was 34.5 months (6 to 109 months). Immunosuppressive treatment consisted mostly of azathioprine and steroids (20/26), steroids and cyclosporin A (CyA) in one case, and azathioprine, steroids and CyA in 5 cases. Average gestational age at birth was 35.2 weeks (30-40 weeks), average birth weight was 2,330 g (1,160-3,700 g). Caesarean section was performed in 73% of cases. The most frequent neonatal pathological condition was the occurrence of respiratory distress, most often related to prematurity and the mode of delivery. No child presented with any lethal congenital malformation. Children born to mothers who were given CyA did not present with more congenital malformations or renal function impairment.

Seventeen premature babies were ventilated with high frequency oscillation (HFO) for severe hyaline membrane disease. The results were compared to a group of 16 babies ventilated with classical positive pressure ventilation and presenting with hyaline membrane disease of the same severity. The results demonstrated an improvement of the mortality rate with HFO without any significant difference of pulmonary or neurologic complications. Furthermore, a controlled study in order to demonstrate an improvement of this type of ventilation is required.

A continuous measurement of the energetic consumption and a nutritional evaluation were performed over 24 hours in two comparable groups of children under cyclic or continuous total parenteral nutrition (TPN). Over the 24 hours, energetic consumptions and nitrogenous retentions were equal in both groups. In cases submitted to continuous TPN, a similar utilization of nutriments was observed during the day and night periods, with global predominance of carbohydrate oxidation and of lipogenesis. In cases submitted to cyclic TPN, night and day utilization of nutriments was significantly different, with important utilization of glycogen and lipid stocks during the day. Thus, cyclic TPN allows a more important mobilization of the energetic stocks and physical activity during the day than continuous TPN and might change the quality of the weight gain and avoid an unnecessary storage of lipid deposits.

32 healthy or sick low birth weight infants (birth weight less than 1,200 g), surviving more than 48 hours with or without respiratory distress were fed by continuous enteral infusion of human milk through a nasoduodenal tube. By this method, oral caloric intake was increased quickly. This allowed early suppression of intravenous supplementation and lowered risks of metabolic and septic disorders. Precautions which are to be followed in order to lower intestinal complications are reported.

The authors report a controlled study of the use of 2 types of amino-acid solutions for premature infants nutrition in the first days of life, one of the solution (solution I) being adapted for prematures. The average amino-acid blood levels in prematures receiving solution I were close to those observed in cord blood; Plasma taurine, alanine and arginine concentrations were significantly lower with normalized levels of aromatic amino-acids, lysine, taurine and proline; serum ammonia level was also lower. This study shows that using an amino-acid solution adapted to prematures as a supplement to parenteral nutrition during the first days of life allows to progressively increase the nitrogen intakes without inducing dangerous plasma levels of some amino-acids.