Table of contents

Original research

• Necrotising enterocolitis, late-onset sepsis and mortality after routine probiotic introduction in the UK (25 August, 2021)

  Claire Granger, Elda Dermyshi, Eve Roberts, Lauren C Beck, Nicholas Embleton, Janet Berrington

  In this single-centre retrospective review of more than 1000 infants born before 32 week's gestation. The routine introduction of multi-strain probiotics was not associated with changes in the risk of mortality or necrotising enterocolitis.

• Safety and efficacy of low-dose diazoxide in small-for-gestational-age infants with hyperinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia (20 September, 2021)

  Suresh Chandran, Pravin R R, Chua Mei Chien, Seyed Ehsan Saffari, Victor Samuel Rajadurai, Fabian Yap

  SGA infants are at risk of hyperinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia and neuronal injury. We report that low dose diazoxide (3-5 mg/kg/day) effectively treats hyperinsulinaemic hypoglycaemia in these SGA infants. Its safety profile was excellent, but adverse events were still observed.

• Outcome of non-cooled asphyxiated infants with under-recognised or delayed-onset encephalopathy (16 December, 2021)

  Corline E J Parmentier, Sylke J Steggerda, Lauren C Weeke, Monique Rijken, Linda S De Vries, Floris Groenendaal

  In a retrospective cohort study, all infants with perinatal asphyxia and early seizure onset who did not receive therapeutic hypothermia had MRI abnormalities and half died or had poor neurodevelopmental outcome.

• Prenatal ultrasonographic markers for prediction of complex gastroschisis and adverse perinatal outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis (4 October, 2021)

  Raphael C Sun, Kamran Hessami, Eyal Krispin, Mohan Pammi, Shayan Mostafaei, Luc Joyeux, Jan Deprest, Sundeep Keswani, Timothy C Lee, Alice King, Michael A Belfort, Alireza A Shamshirsaz

  Based on a systematic review, it was concluded that observed bowel dilatation in the second trimester of pregnancy was significantly associated with the development of complex gastroschisis, postnatal short bowel syndrome and length of stay.

• Social inequalities in access to care at birth and neonatal mortality: an observational study (16 October, 2021)

  Morgane Michel, Corinne Alberti, Jean-Claude Carel, Karine Chevreul

  This manuscript examines all live births in France from 2012 - 2014 to assess the association between socioeconomic status and delivery of preterm infants in the appropriate level of maternity and neonatal care. The authors found such an association, as well as a higher risk of neonatal mortality.

• Neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm infants after randomisation to initial resuscitation with lower (FiO₂ <0.3) or higher (FiO₂ >0.6) initial oxygen levels. An individual patient meta-analysis

  (1 November, 2021)

  Ju Lee Oei, Vishal Kapadia, Yacov Rabi, Ola Didrik Saugstad, Denise Rook, Marijn J Vermeulen, Nuria Boronat, Valerie Thamrin, William Tarnow-Mordi, John Smyth, Ian M Wright, Kei Lui, Johannes B van Goudoever, Val Gebski, Maximo Vento

  In an individual patient meta-analysis of infants less than 32 weeks gestation, resuscitation with lower (<0.3) or higher (>0.6) initial FiO2 was not associated with risk of death or disability at 2 years.

• Surfactant therapy in late preterm and term neonates with respiratory distress syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis (22 October, 2021)

  Viraraghavan Vadakkencherry Ramaswamy, Thangaraj Abiramalatha, Tapas Bandyopadhyay, Elaine Boyle, Charles Christoph Roehr

  Uncertainty exists on surfactant in late preterm and term infants with RDS. Surfactant therapy in neonates ≥340/7 weeks may be associated with decreased risk of mortality and short-term respiratory morbidities. However, there is wide variation in thresholds for surfactant therapy.

• Effect of chlorhexidine cleansing on healthcare-associated infections in neonates: a systematic review and meta-analysis (23 December, 2021)

  Jinyan Zhou, Lingli Mei, Shuohui Chen
• Reduced health-related quality of life in children born extremely preterm in 2006 compared with 1995: the EPICure Studies (25 October, 2021)

  Yanyan Ni, Samantha Johnson, Neil Marlow, Dieter Wolke

  Parent-reported health-related quality of life information was obtained for children born <26 weeks gestation in England at 11 years in two birth cohorts (1995 and 2006). Mean utility scores were significantly lower for 2006 vs. 1995 cohorts, while control groups were similar.

• Cerebral perfusion and neurological examination characterise neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome: a prospective cohort study (1 November, 2021)

  Kristen L Benninger, Jin Peng, Mai-Lan Ho, Julia Newton, Danny J J Wang, Houchun H Hu, Ann R Stark, Jerome A Rusin, Nathalie L Maitre

  This prospective cohort study found that 30 infants with neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome had higher global cerebral blood flow and more neurological exam abnormalities than 31 unexposed controls. Follow-up to determine these infants’ neurodevelopmental courses is required.

• Outcome of infants with 10 min Apgar scores of 0–1 in a low-resource setting (1 November, 2021)

  Thorkild Tylleskär, Francesco Cavallin, Susanna Myrnerts Höök, Nicolas J Pejovic, Clare Lubulwa, Josaphat Byamugisha, Jolly Nankunda, Daniele Trevisanuto

  This observational study of 49 newborns, Apgar score of 0-1 after 10 mins’ resuscitation was conducted in Uganda. Resuscitation continued for median (IQR) of 32 (17-37) min, 1 infant survived to 7 days. Policies around discontinuing resuscitation should vary according to setting.

• Randomised crossover trial comparing algorithms and averaging times for automatic oxygen control in preterm infants (24 November, 2021)

  Christoph E Schwarz, Karen B Kreutzer, Lukas Langanky, Nicole S Wolf, Wolfgang Braun, Marc Paul O'Sullivan, Christian F Poets, Axel R Franz

  In this randomised crossover study in 24 oxygen dependent preterm infants on non-invasive respiratory support, modifications to an established automated oxygen controller did not improve time in intended SpO₂ range. There was no difference in performance whether the oximeter SpO₂ averaging time was set to 2 seconds or 8 seconds.

• Predicting neurodevelopmental outcomes in fetuses with isolated mild ventriculomegaly (29 November, 2021)

  Paul David Griffiths, Deborah Jarvis, Daniel J Connolly, Cara Mooney, Nicholas Embleton, Anthony Richard Hart

  Amongst 42 fetuses with isolated mild ventriculomegaly, all 23 fetuses with unilateral dilatation had normal neurodevelopmental outcome. Normal outcome was observed in 12/19 fetuses where the ventriculomegaly was bilateral.

• Five-minute Apgar score and outcomes in neonates of 24–28 weeks’ gestation (15 November, 2021)

  Prakesh S Shah, Mikael Norman, Franca Rusconi, Satoshi Kusuda, Brian Reichman, Malcolm Battin, Dirk Bassler, Neena Modi, Stellan Hakansson, Jie Yang, Shoo K Lee, Kjell Helenius, Maximo Vento, Liisa Lehtonen, Mark Adams, Tetsuya Isayama, Kei Lui, Luigi Gagliardi

  In a large multicenter retrospective study of extremely preterm infants, increasing 5-minute Apgar scores were associated with decreasing mortality but low scores did not predict severe neurologic injury in survivors.