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As we continue our plan to make the journal fatter in terms of articles per issue, it becomes increasingly difficult to choose which articles to highlight in Fantoms without leaving out lots of interesting content.
Nutrition
There is a strong nutritional theme running through this issue. As Editor’s choice, Edward Andrews et al demonstrate through their implementation of a nutritional intervention that early post-natal growth failure in preterm infants is not inevitable. In 396 infants born before 32 weeks gestation they were able to show that implementation of nutritional guidelines by a multidisciplinary nutrition team, including the use of early parenteral nutrition and breast milk fortification, delivering nutrient intakes in line with internationally recognised recommendations, avoided postnatal weight loss and allowed most infants to achieve growth approximating their birth weight centile. They provided a mean protein intake of 3.7 g/kg/day during the first 2 weeks after birth. The authors highlight a need to understand the relationship between early postnatal growth and longer-term outcomes in this population. An accompanying editorial by Gopi Menon and colleagues discusses the difficulties of assuming that postnatal growth in preterm infants should track the birth weight centiles and the uncertainty about weight as a …