Relação entre desnutrição neonatal e tempo de internação em unidade de terapia intensiva em recém-nascidos pré-termo: um estudo de coorte

Abstract

Prematurity is characterized as a complex syndrome with multiple etiological factors. Considering that premature infants have low nutritional reserves and high energy expenditure, that a large proportion of extremely preterm or very low birth weight newborns have nutritional deficiencies during their hospital stay, and that these babies have difficulty meeting their nutritional needs, often resulting in malnutrition, which can be aggravated with the length of hospital stay, the objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship between length of hospital stay and malnutrition in preterm newborns requiring neonatal intensive care. A prospective cohort study was conducted with low-weight preterm newborns admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of the Januário Cicco Maternity School. Biological, clinical, anthropometric and dietary data were collected during hospitalization. The relationship between the degrees of malnutrition at the time of discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit and the length of hospitalization was observed. The more days the premature infants were hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit, the greater the chances of moderate or severe malnutrition at discharge (p = 0.022) and the number of days of use of parenteral nutritional therapy was a predictor of a lower degree of malnutrition (p = 0.0025). Thus, it is possible to state that the prolonged length of hospitalization may be associated with possible repercussions on the growth and development of these newborns and that the number of days of use of parenteral nutrition significantly reduces the degree of severe malnutrition at discharge.