Description of Collaborative Activity: |
To address the lack of accepted standards for nutritional care of preterm infants, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)—in collaboration with a consortium of professional organizations and relevant agencies—organized this effort to conduct systematic reviews of existing evidence and to develop guidelines related to nutrition in preterm infants. The Evaluation of the Evidence to Support Guidelines for the Nutritional Care of Preterm Infants: The Pre-B Project, is modelled in approach after the B-24 project, an NICHD-led effort to include evidence on infants from birth to age 24 months in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Working Groups were charged with identifying: Priority topics and questions for which there is sufficient evidence to conduct systematic reviews that result in a grading and guideline development process; and a targeted research agenda to address those priority areas for which no/insufficient evidence exists to support guideline development. Working Groups addressed the following themes: Nutrient specifications for preterm infants (including limits of viability up to near-term babies and an analysis of all essential nutrients) Issues in feeding preterm infants with particular emphasis on factors influencing the transition to enteral feeding Care of specific clinical conditions commonly found in neonatal intensive care units, including preterm and sick term infants (Examples of conditions would include necrotizing enterocolitis or bronchopulmonary dysplasia) Standards of existing and new guidelines, including current standards for outcomes such as growth and neurological development. |
