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Postnatal growth failure in preterm infants: ascertainment and relation to long-term outcome

Abstract Objective: Traditional measure of postnatal growth failure assessment has poor discriminatory power for long-term outcomes. Our objective was to identify measure of postnatal growth failure associated with long-term outcome in preterm infants born at <28 weeks' gestation. Patients and methods: Four measures of defining postnatal growth failure at 36 weeks corrected gestational age: (1) weight <10th centile, (2) weight <3rd centile, (3) z score difference from birth >1 and, (4) z score difference from birth >2; were compared for their predictive values and strength of association with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18–24 months. Results: Postnatal growth failure defined as a decrease in z score of >2 between birth and 36 weeks corrected gestational age had the best predictive values compared to other postnatal growth failure measures, however, it was significantly associated with psychomotor developmental (P=0.006) but not with mental developmental indices (P=0.379). Conclusion: Postnatal growth failure defined by z score change influenced psychomotor but not mental tasks in this cohort. This method of ascertainment could be useful to identify infants who might benefit from nutritional interventions.