Alur, P.; Harvey, K.; Hart, K.; Yimer, W.K.; Thekkeveedu, R.K. Association between Weight for Length and the Severity of Respiratory Morbidity in Preterm Infants. Children2024, 11, 91.
Alur, P.; Harvey, K.; Hart, K.; Yimer, W.K.; Thekkeveedu, R.K. Association between Weight for Length and the Severity of Respiratory Morbidity in Preterm Infants. Children 2024, 11, 91.
Alur, P.; Harvey, K.; Hart, K.; Yimer, W.K.; Thekkeveedu, R.K. Association between Weight for Length and the Severity of Respiratory Morbidity in Preterm Infants. Children2024, 11, 91.
Alur, P.; Harvey, K.; Hart, K.; Yimer, W.K.; Thekkeveedu, R.K. Association between Weight for Length and the Severity of Respiratory Morbidity in Preterm Infants. Children 2024, 11, 91.
Abstract
Objective: To determine if higher weight-to-length z-scores after 32 weeks of gestation are associated with higher Pulmonary Scores (PS) in preterm infants requiring respiratory support using a prospective observational study.
Methods: Infants born <30 weeks, with a post-menstrual age (PMA) of 30-33 weeks were enrolled. Weight, infant’s length, and head circumference were measured weekly. Data on calories/kg/d, protein g/kg/d, weight for length percentiles, z-scores, and BMI at 33 through 40 weeks PMA were collected. PS was calculated.
Results: We analyzed 91 infants. The mean gestational age was 26.9 ± 1.7 weeks. There was a significant association between PS and W/L z scores(p<0.0001). For every one-unit increase in W/L z-scores, PS increased by 0.063. There was a significant association between PS and W/L percentiles (p = 0.0017) as well as BMI (p = <0.0001). For every unit increase in W/L percentiles, PS increased by 0.002, and for a unit increase in BMI, PS increased by 0.04. The association remained significant after postnatal steroids, sex, corrected, and birth gestational ages were included in the regression analysis. Nutrition did not affect anthropometric measurements.
Conclusion: Our study is the first to demonstrate that higher BMI and W/L may adversely affect respiratory severity in infants.
Keywords
weight for length; BMI; BPD; respiratory severity; preterm
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
