Author Archives: Keith Barrington

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About Keith Barrington

I am a neonatologist and clinical researcher at Sainte Justine University Health Center in Montréal

What should saturation targets be in established chronic lung disease with pulmonary hypertension?

This question has been puzzling me recently, as we are trying to evaluate our current approach, and whether it needs to be changed. My bias has been that oxygen is toxic, and we should only give the minimum needed to … Continue reading

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Making decisions for extreme preterms, do parents regret their choices?

In 2022 we published an article addressing the question in the title. As part of the Parents’ Voices Project, we questioned families of very preterm infants at follow up about their experiences prior to, during, and after the NICU. 98% … Continue reading

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Improving human milk for preterm infants.

Mother’s own milk (MoM) is clearly preferable for the enteral nutrition of all infants, with major advantages demonstrated among the preterm. Despite one bizarre, flawed, and seriously biased article, that I have criticized on this blog, the next best substrate … Continue reading

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Sending home preterm babies with Inguinal Hernias

It has been dogma for quite some time that newborn preterm infants with Inguinal Hernias (I will resist the temptation to latinise the plural, although I was brought up hearing about ‘herniae’) should have them surgically fixed prior to discharge … Continue reading

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Colostrum and feeding preterm babies

Forgive me if you are already convinced, but I remain somewhat sceptical of the benefits of routinely painting the inside of the preterm infant’s mouth with colostrum. Even though I have supported the introduction of the practice on our NICU, … Continue reading

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Nosocomial infections, “Hospital-Acquired Infections”, and now “Hospital-Onset Bacteremia”

It has been clear for a while that the focus of some groups and some publications on only infections associated with central venous catheters, so-called CLABSI, was missing the point. You could completely eliminate CLABSI by not using central lines, … Continue reading

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Early Exclusive Enteral Nutrition: not Early, not Exclusive, some Parenteral, but interesting anyway.

This could have been part 3 of my recent duet of posts on the potential toxicity of TPN. Those 2 posts referred to the late preterm and the full term newborn. In this study (Razzaghy J, et al. Early and … Continue reading

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Mind your ABC’s : Artificial respiration Before Cord clamping?

Delayed cord clamping has, rightly, become the default whenever a newborn infant is born, benefits in term, late preterm, and very preterm infants have been shown. Current guidelines suggest that if the infant “needs resuscitation” then immediate clamping and assisted … Continue reading

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The role of Ureaplasma in Chronic Lung Disease of Prematurity

There have long been questions about the possible role of ureaplasma in the pathogenesis of BPD. Studies have shown a statistical association between maternal colonization and BPD, between placentas showing evidence of the germ, and between neonatal endotracheal colonization and … Continue reading

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Intravenous Nutrition of the sick term and late preterm infants : part 2.

The other trial is a much larger multicentre trial with clinical outcomes. (Alexander T, et al. Nutritional Support for Moderate-to-Late-Preterm Infants – A Randomized Trial. N Engl J Med. 2024;390(16):1493-504), the gestational ages only overlapped by 1 week with the … Continue reading

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