Tag Archives: Necrotising Enterocolitis

Probiotics: so what about those ELBW babies?

Posted on 24 September 2014 by Keith Barrington

After a comment to my previous post about probiotics, I wanted to clarify what I said about the ELBW baby, that is, the newborn with a birth weight below 1001 grams. It is true that there are few studies that … Continue reading →

Posted in Neonatal Research | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The Time for a Confirmative Necrotizing Enterocolitis Probiotics Prevention Trial in the Extremely Low Birth Weight Infant in North America Is Well Past

Posted on 23 September 2014 by Keith Barrington

What on earth are these people waiting for? A number of authors from Toronto and elsewhere have written a ridiculous editorial (entitled ‘The Time for a Confirmative Necrotizing Enterocolitis Probiotics Prevention Trial in the Extremely Low Birth Weight Infant in … Continue reading →

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Necrotizing Enterocolitis and Surgery

Posted on 28 August 2014 by Keith Barrington

Hull MA, Fisher JG, Gutierrez IM, Jones BA, Kang KH, Kenny M, et al. Mortality and Management of Surgical Necrotizing Enterocolitis in Very Low Birth Weight Neonates: A Prospective Cohort Study. Journal of the American College of Surgeons. 2014;218(6):1148-55. This data is … Continue reading →

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Probiotics work in Germany also

Posted on 23 June 2014 by Keith Barrington

A new study from the German Neonatal Network Database compares the incidence of NEC between centers that used probiotics, centers that did not use probiotics, and centers that changed their practice part way through the data collection period from being … Continue reading →

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New Lactoferrin Data

Posted on 29 May 2014 by Keith Barrington

Two new articles addressing effects of lactoferrin. Both used bovine lactoferrin (bLF), one was in humans, the other in piglets. In case you haven’t been following closely, lactoferrin is an iron transport protein that has multiple anti-infective properties, against bacteria, … Continue reading →

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Hero: Not just for infections any more

Posted on 15 May 2014 by Keith Barrington

Sullivan BA, Grice SM, Lake DE, Moorman JR, Fairchild KD. Infection and Other Clinical Correlates of Abnormal Heart Rate Characteristics in Preterm Infants. The Journal of pediatrics. 2014. Monitoring for abnormal heart rate characteristics has previously been shown in a … Continue reading →

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Necrotising Enterocolitis: is abdominal ultrasound helpful?

Posted on 29 April 2014 by Keith Barrington

I am still not convinced. (Maybe I could ask, and answer, the same thing about abdominal radiography!) In recent years in my practice we have had examples of echographic diagnosis of intramural gas in stable infants who had an abdominal … 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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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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