Poor postnatal growth in preterm infants

Adding the weight gain ratio to our study did not provide added benefits when identifying poor growth in very preterm infants

“…Whilst the weight gain ratio method identified 72 (92.3%) infants with growth failure, the z ‐score and the growth velocity methods 2 both identified a much lower number of infants with inadequate growth: 57 (73%) and 53 (67.9%) respectively.…”

“…We have now also added the weight growth ratio, as suggested by Manzar 2 . In Table , we compare the number and percentage of infants with poor growth, as defined separately by these three different methods.…”

“…We thank Dr Manzar for his interest in our publication 1 and his interesting comments 2 . He suggested that defining poor growth in very preterm infants should not be based on z ‐scores alone.…”

Comment on Brinkis et al. Nutrient Intake with Early Progressive Enteral Feeding and Growth of Very Low-Birth-Weight Newborns. Nutrients 2022, 14, 1181

“…Some researchers use standard deviation, some use z-score, while others use growth velocity. We recently suggested using a triple method of growth assessment in preterm infants [3], combining growth velocity (GV), weight gain ratio (WGR), and delta z-score (∆Z). The triple method was derived from the reports of Patel et al and Rochow et al [4,5].…”