Abstract

ESPINOSA REYES, Tania Mayvel; LADRON DE GUEVARA CASALS, Annia; CARVAJAL MARTINEZ, Francisco  and  DOMINGUEZ ALONSO, Emma. Growth of very low birthweight pre-term neonates. Rev Cubana Endocrinol [online]. 2013, vol.24, n.1, pp. 18-34. ISSN 1561-2953.

Introduction: the expectations of optimal growth of preterm newborns, whose birthweights were very low, are not totally clear; the real thing is that this population does not show homogeneous growth. Objectives: to characterize the postnatal growth for the first year of life and to determine those factors associated with their catch-up growth. Methods: a prospective longitudinal and descriptive study was conducted, which included preterm infants with birthweight under 1 500 g, born at 4 gynecobstetric hospitals from January 1st 2005 to December 31st, 2007 in Havana. Results: the sample was made up of 73 patients of whom 37 were females (50.7 %). Of this number, 60.2 % was born with 32-36 weeks of gestation; 50.6 % weighing 1 200-1 399 g and 36 % showed a size of 38 to 40.9 cm. After three months, 70 % was found to be less than 3 percentile of size/age and weight/age, but at one year, over 50 % reached normal percentile values. The smaller gestational age, the only pregnancy, the exclusive breastfeeding (68.5 %), longer duration of breastfeeding as well as lack of infections were all related to statistically significant higher weight gain. Conclusions: the preterm newborns with very low birthweight experience accelerated growth rate in their first year of life. This catch-up growth is linked to perinatal, postnatal and nutritional factors.

Keywords : preterm; low birthweight; catch-up growth.

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