Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2009
In a review of the literature concerning the nutritional needs of newborn infants in intensive care, one surprisingly finds that only a few studies on this subject have been performed. This is in contrast to the extensive literature regarding the nutritional needs of healthy, growing newborn infants. It is astonishing, further, to find that there are many reports on the metabolic effects of illness in adults but hardly any on those in children and newborn infants. In fact, in a recent textbook of pediatric intensive care, in the chapter on nutrition and metabolism in the critically ill child, the authors state, “the metabolic derangements that occur in children have not been well delineated during critical illness, so that data and findings discussed have been taken mostly from the adult literature.”