Updates on Nutritional Assessment of Very Preterm Infants
Miami Neonatology 2024—48th Annual International Conference

This education is about:

• Neonatal nutrition and lifelong health and neurodevelopmental outcomes
• Postnatal growth vs. fetal growth standards
• Preterm infant body composition and health
• Fat-free mass and neurodevelopment
• Tools for measuring body composition in the NICU

Why it matters:
Nutritional care in the NICU sets the stage for lifelong health in preterm infants when the goals of  supporting neurodevelopment and minimizing cardiometabolic risks are met. Nutritional assessment with serial anthropometry is a critical component of monitoring nutritional status and response to interventions. However, controversy exists regarding the most appropriate growth standards for preterm infants, and the ability to obtain information about body composition in the NICU is limited. Up-to-date, evidence-based methods for assessing preterm infant growth and measuring fat-free and fat mass in the NICU are needed.

What you will learn:
In this presentation, Mandy Brown Belfort, MD, MPH, highlights current practices and ongoing questions regarding the optimal nutritional assessment of preterm infants. Dr. Belfort discusses the importance of accurately assessing nutritional status in preterm infants, with an emphasis on serial anthropometry using growth standards. The relative limitations of the reference fetus standard and the potential advantages of using preterm postnatal standards are reviewed. Looking to the future, Dr. Belfort also discusses the need for inexpensive and portable methods to monitor body composition in preterm infants and data on the use of bioelectrical impedance analysis, a promising investigational tool for measuring fat-free mass in the NICU.

• Profile

  Mandy Brown Belfort, MD, MPH

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  Mandy Brown Belfort, MD MPH is a practicing neonatologist and Associate Chief of Research in the Department of Pediatrics at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She leads an NIH-funded program of research focused on the influence of early-life diet on health and neurodevelopmental outcomes later in life. She has led collaborative epidemiological research indicating long-lasting neurodevelopmental benefits of maternal milk-based diets in large cohorts of very preterm-born children. Current observational and interventional studies emphasize the NICU hospitalization as a critical window of opportunity to implement and test new nutritional strategies. Dr. Belfort’s work has been published widely in peer-reviewed journals and informs public health recommendations and policies related to breastfeeding and clinical nutritional approaches within neonatal intensive care.

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  Mandy Brown Belfort, MD, MPH

  Associate Chief of Research
  Department of Pediatrics
  Brigham & Women’s Hospital
  Associate Professor of Pediatrics
  Harvard Medical School
  Cambridge, Massachusetts