Addressing the nutritional needs of preterm infants
More than 380,000 infants in the U.S. each year are born preterm — which means 1 in 10 infants is born too soon. Thirty years ago, extremely preterm infants did not survive, but today, infants can survive as early as 22 weeks gestational age. However, despite receiving high quality care, 50% of infants born at very low birth weight suffer from postnatal growth failure or severe growth failure, and over 40% experience neurodevelopmental delays and disabilities.
Caring for these extremely small and vulnerable patients presents many complex and costly challenges. While state-of-the-art systems and protocols exist to effectively support heart and lung development of preterm infants, there is no current tool that provides precise feedback to support clinical care decisions regarding their nutrition and feeding.
The Struggle to Successfully Grow Preterms Infants
Optimal nutrition early in life can positively impact not only physical growth, but also neurological development. Successful progression from parenteral to enteral to oral feeding is key to achieving appropriate growth and development, however it remains a major challenge for clinicians.
Calculating proper nutrition with the right amounts of energy and macro and micronutrients is complex and time-consuming. With so many different nutrition and feeding protocols, a growing catalog of available dietary options, and lack of strandardization, it’s difficult to make a truly informed decision.
Extensive studies have been conducted that reveal racial/ethnic disparity in the NICU. There is a difference in the quality of care provided to non-white NICU patients.
Because of this, we have built a real-time equitable care intelligence module: NICUtrition® Equitable Care Intelligence (ECI)
This real-time data tracking allows members of the NICU team to assess the provision of equitable care at the patient and unit level through comparison against set standards using comprehensive data visualizations of infant nutrition, discharge rates, and patient outcomes.
Profit J, Gould JB, Bennett M, et al. Racial/Ethnic
Disparity in NICU Quality of Care Delivery. Pediatrics.
Our mission is to help neonatal care professionals overcome the current challenges associated with preterm infant nutrition and feeding and enable them to make more informed care decisions to promote positive growth and healthier outcomes for their most vulnerable patients.
Limited access to real-
time data & insights