OBJECTIVE To find the association of maternal energy and protein intake with preterm birth. DESIGN Case-control study. SETTING Two hospitals at Lucknow in Northern India. PARTICIPANTS Cases (n=350) were defined as mothers (age 18-40 y) of singleton live preterm (<37 wks) neonates. Controls (n=350) were mothers who delivered a singleton neonate, consecutive to enrolled case, after completi...

The lactulose/L-rhamnose urinary excretion ratio during continued infusion of milks containing both sugars was used as an index of the permeability of the neonatal bowel to large and small molecules. Healthy infants of gestational age 31-36 weeks proved to have a period of enhanced permeability to lactulose during the first week of life, the lactulose/L-rhamnose excretion ratio being significan...

As in the adult with acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome, the use of lung-protective ventilation has improved outcomes for neonatal lung diseases. Animal models of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome and congenital diaphragmatic hernia have provided evidence that ‘gentle ventilation’ with low tidal volumes and ‘open-lung’ strategies of using positive end-expiratory pres...

The nutrition of the premature infant poses a critically important challenge to clinicians. Premature infants are a heterogeneous group; maternal status, gestational age, drug intake, respiratory distress, phototherapy, and infection all conspire to make it extremely unlikely that a recommendation for daily intakes will satisfactorily encompass all babies. Clinical and subclinical deficiencies ...

We report on a preterm male newborn with complete ectopia cordis associated with Cantrell's syndrome. The neonate had an ectopia cordis involving defects of the lower sternum, supraumbilical abdominal wall, anterior portion of the diaphragm, and diaphragmatic portion of the pericardium associated with complex congenital heart defects. The infant died shortly after birth. We discuss this case an...

A late preterm neonate born by cesarean section with intact membranes presented at 9 days of life with shock and liver failure. Surface cultures were negative but whole blood polymerase chain reaction was positive for herpes simplex virus type 2, underscoring the value of this test in early diagnosis of perinatally acquired disseminated herpes simplex virus infection without skin lesions.

Bacillus cereus is an uncommon but potentially serious bacterial pathogen causing infections of the bloodstream, lungs, and central nervous system of preterm neonates. A case of bacteremia caused by B. cereus in a 19-day-old preterm neonate who was successfully treated with vancomycin, tobramycin, meropenem, and clindamycin is described. Implications for the diagnostic laboratory and clinicians...