Monthly Archives: April 2014

More from SUPPORT, not research governance and consent this time!

Posted on 21 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

One of the difficulties in performing neonatal research is how to determine the most clinically appropriate outcomes. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia is often used as a dichotomous outcome variable, partly to facilitate the design of research, including combining it with other competing outcomes, … Continue reading →

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Probiotics: what do parents want?

Posted on 10 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

Some day, I might slow down with the probiotics posts, but not right now! A letter published in Archives reports the results of a parent survey. In the 3 NICUs implicated probiotics are given with parental information and an ‘opt-out’ … Continue reading →

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Neonatal Updates: more nutrition

Posted on 10 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

It is not surprising when I write a blog post about nutrition in the preterm neonate to find that at least one, and on this occasion two, of the articles are from the productive pen of Johannes van Goudoever. Vlaardingerbroek H, … Continue reading →

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Zinc supplementation: should we be galvanized into action?

Posted on 10 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

I wasn’t sure how many non native-English speakers would get that joke, and jokes are rarely improved by explaining them, so if you don’t get it, just keep on reading. Terrin G, Berni Canani R, Passariello A, Messina F, Conti … Continue reading →

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Bugs and Breast Milk

Posted on 9 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

Neonatology recently published a commentary asking the following question about routine probiotic supplementation, ‘what will it take to change practice?‘ This was immediately followed by another commentary, from Neena Modi, explaining why she is still reluctant. Although I have a … Continue reading →

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Single baby rooms?

Posted on 8 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

Terrie Inder and her colleagues have put the cat among the pigeons (as we say in England, I guess we are not keen on pigeons). Her (non-randomized) study suggests that babies who were treated in single rooms had poorer language skills … Continue reading →

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Presentation in Scottsdale AZ

Posted on 7 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

For anyone who was at the AAP workshop in Scottsdale, and anyone else who might be interested. I have put the powerpoint presentation on this blog, under ‘Presentations from our group’ the first heading is AAP Scottsdale AZ 2014. If … Continue reading →

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Do preterm babies need their thyroid?

Posted on 7 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

Now I am very confused. I thought I knew that many very preterm babies had low serum thyroxine levels (this study confirms that). It seems to be a variant of sick euthyroid syndrome, levels tend to fall for about the … Continue reading →

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ETT position

Posted on 5 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

I was very fortunate to do my fellowship in neonatology with Neil Finer. One of the (very many) things which he taught me, about the 3rd day of the fellowship I think, was how to determine ETT position. He showed … Continue reading →

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Neonatal Updates

Posted on 2 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

Gephart SM, Spitzer AR, Effken JA, Dodd E, Halpern M, McGrath JM. Discrimination of GutCheckNEC: a clinical risk index for necrotizing enterocolitis. J Perinatol. 2014. The Pediatrix group have developed a scoring system for predicting the risk of NEC; points … Continue reading →

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