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Nutrition and Health (including climate and ecological aspects)

Enteral nutrition of preterm infants on the Maltese islands: are we doing it right?

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 77, pages 1005–1007 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

Preterm infants being nursed in an intensive care setting are a population at high risk of developing adverse outcomes. Preterm birth is prior to 37 weeks gestation. Prematurity is the second most common cause of death amongst children under 5 years [1]. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends the gold standard feed for babies is exclusively human breast milk when medically possible [2]. The exclusive use of breast milk in pre-term infants protects against development of necrotizing enterocolitis and inflammatory gastrointestinal disease [3].

The Neonatal Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (NPICU) at Mater Dei Hospital, Malta admits children from prematurity to the age of 3 years. Mater Dei is the only nationwide hospital with neonatal high dependency and intensive care facilities. Cardiac surgery facilities are not available locally. Radiological and paediatric surgical services are available. No donor breast milk bank facilities are available.

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Fig. 1: Extreme preterm population at NPICU (Neonatal intensive care unit) are divided into type of feed.

Data availability

Additional data are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Health, Mater Die Hospital, MSD2090, Msida, Malta

    Sophie Noelle Hackenbruch & Ryan Dominic Farrugia

  2. Department of Medicine, Mater Die Hospital, MSD2090, Msida, Malta

    Daniel Cutajar

Authors
  1. Sophie Noelle Hackenbruch
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  2. Daniel Cutajar
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  3. Ryan Dominic Farrugia
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Contributions

SNH was responsible for writing the manuscript, reviewing the manuscript, extracting and analysing data, updating reference list and creating Table 1 and Fig. 1. DC was responsible for reviewing the manuscript, screening potentially eligble studies, interpreting results and writing the manuscript. RF was responsible for review of manuscript, providing feedback of the manuscript and the design of the protocol.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sophie Noelle Hackenbruch.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical approval

Data protection approval, CEO approval, head of department approval at Mater Dei Hospital and ethical approval by the University of Malta was requested and obtained prior to commencing the study.

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Hackenbruch, S.N., Cutajar, D. & Farrugia, R.D. Enteral nutrition of preterm infants on the Maltese islands: are we doing it right?. Eur J Clin Nutr 77, 1005–1007 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-023-01304-9

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