Nutrition practices and clinical outcomes in extremely low birthweight babies

US dietitians: 1.0 CE credit from CDR. CPD hours are applicable for Australia and New Zealand dietitians. To obtain your CEU certificate/certificate of attendance, click the ‘Get it now’ button and follow the prompts to register. Then go to your Dashboard on your Dietitian Connection account and download the certificate for this webinar.

A key modifiable factor for improving neurodevelopment in extremely low birthweight (ELBW: <1000 g) preterm babies may be improving growth, especially head growth, by optimising nutrition in the early neonatal period. Despite this, few randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have assessed the impact of nutritional interventions on neurodevelopmental outcomes and meta-analyses of RCTs investigating the effects of protein intake on growth are inconclusive. The ProVIDe trial, an international, multicentre, double-blind, RCT, randomised ELBW babies receive either an extra gram per day of amino acid solution or placebo for 5 days after birth, in addition to standard nutrition. The primary outcome is survival free from neurodevelopmental disability at 2 years’ corrected age, available in 2021. In this webinar, Dr Barbara Cormack will present findings from her PhD research and ProVIDe study secondary cohort analyses of relationships between nutrition and outcomes, including neonatal refeeding syndrome, mortality and growth and how these vary around Australia and New Zealand.

About the speaker:

Dr Barbara Cormack is a New Zealand paediatric dietitian, Clinical Lead for the team of paediatric dietitians at Starship Child Health, Auckland City Hospital and Honorary Research Fellow at the Liggins Institute, University of Auckland. She specialises in the nutritional care of preterm babies and is known internationally for her leadership in neonatal nutrition, authoring the Neonatal and Infant Nutrition Handbook (now in its 4^th Edition) and being a founding member of the Australasian Neonatal Dietitians’ Network. Her realisation of the gaps in evidence around neonatal nutrition led Barbara to her PhD at the Liggins Institute where her research centres on how nutrition affects the growth, development and the long-term health of preterm babies.