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During daily rounds in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), physicians need to balance many considerations in their decision-making about nutrition plans for premature infants. Often, instead of discussing how much energy, carbohydrates, fats and protein the baby has received, physicians tend to focus on how much fluid was delivered, according to a study published in Pediatric Research.

"Neonatal fluid intake is easier to calculate quickly, but it is not completely interchangeable with nutrition. Proper nutrition is essential for promoting growth in the premature infant but is more challenging to calculate during rounds," said lead author Gustave Falciglia, M.D., a neonatologist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

"Growth, however, is critically important, and many issues faced by premature infants will resolve with proper growth, so we need to consider nutrition plans carefully."

"Parents especially are very invested in their baby's nutrition. They want to know why we decide to place a central line for intravenous nutrition or when to advance feeds and why not," added Falciglia. "We consider a lot of factors during rounds. Automation with real-time data highlighting trade-offs would help neonatologists enormously when considering nutrition adjustments during rounds."

Falciglia and colleagues point out that insufficient nutrition intake in preterm infants is associated with poor growth throughout the NICU stay.

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