Monthly Archives: January 2022

What do we tell families at 22 weeks?

When we counsel families about the potential outcomes for infants born profoundly preterm, I think we would all agree that we should be honest, transparent and truthful. Which includes, I would suggest, truthfulness about our own local results, as well … Continue reading

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Active intensive care at 22 weeks gestation

Even the New England Journal are getting in on the act (Lee CD, et al. Neonatal Resuscitation in 22-Week Pregnancies. N Engl J Med. 2022;386(4):391-3), I guess that someone talked to the editors about the practice variation in resuscitation of … Continue reading

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Speak French to your babies (or Chinese) in the NICU

This is a fascinating study from Columbus Ohio in mildly preterm babies when they reached term. (Richard C, et al. Randomized Trial to Increase Speech Sound Differentiation in Infants Born Preterm. J Pediatr. 2021) We know that prematurity and NICU … Continue reading

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More musings on the microbiome

We are fortunate in neonatology to not have to worry about C difficile, partly because the name has been changed for this germ as well (now Clostridioides, rather than Clostridium), and it is one less name change to keep up … Continue reading

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Survival and longer term outcomes for the extremely preterm. The NICHD network results.

In addition to the short term results that I just posted about, the publication from the NICHD NRN describes the longer term outcomes of the babies of 22 to 26 weeks GA born between 2013-2016 who completed their 2 year … Continue reading

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Survival and outcomes for the extremely preterm. The NICHD network results continue to improve: Can we do even better?

A new publication from the NRN describes short term outcomes and care practices of babies from 22 to 28 weeks gestation born in recent years (2013 to 2018) and for those born in 2013-2016 results of evaluations of those followed … Continue reading

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Probiotics in preterms; what’s new? Part 2

Rao S, et al. Probiotic supplementation in neonates with congenital gastrointestinal surgical conditions: a pilot randomised controlled trial. Pediatr Res. 2022. When we started using probiotics there had been a couple of case reports of probiotic associated sepsis in infants … Continue reading

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Probiotics in preterms; what’s new? Part 1

I haven’t, surprisingly, posted about probiotics recently, but there are some new findings in the literature that warrant discussion. Granger C, et al. Necrotising enterocolitis, late-onset sepsis and mortality after routine probiotic introduction in the UK. Arch Dis Child Fetal … Continue reading

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Cardiovascular support in the preterm, how to determine adequate perfusion?

As many of you will know, I have advocated for many years for evaluation and management of very preterm babies based on their tissue perfusion rather than the blood pressure. There is little or no correlation between BP and perfusion, … Continue reading

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STOP-BPD follow up study

Does routine hydrocortisone, started at 7 to 14 days of age among infants <30 weeks GA and/or <1250g birth weight who were ventilator dependent and at increased risk for BPD, affect their long term developmental progress? (Halbmeijer NM, et al. … Continue reading

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