Nutritional state, maturational delay on electroencephalogram, and developmental outcome in extremely low birth weight infants

The aim of this study is to clarify the relation among developmental outcome, nutritional state during the neonatal period, maturational electroencephalographic changes. Thirteen extremely low birth weight infants who completed 6- or 9-year follow-up were a subject of this study. Undernutrition was defined as enteral feeding below 100 mL/kg/day at 3 weeks of age. Dysmature patterns were defined as the persistence of EEG patterns 2 weeks or more immature for post-conceptional age. IQ was examined at 6 and 9 years of age. Body height and weight, and head circumference at 6 years of age were stratified by the percentile grades. Full and verbal IQ was significantly lower in infants with undernutrition than those with normal nutrition. Among infants with undernutrition, those with persistent dysmature patterns tended to have lower full and performance IQ than those without persistent dysmature patterns. Head circumference was 50 percentile or larger in all infants with normal nutrition, whereas it was below 50 percentile in six of eight infants with undernutrition. Extremely low birth weight infants with undernutrition had worse neurodevelopmental outcome at 6 or 9 years of age than those with normal nutrition. Among infants with undernutrition, developmental outcome was relatively worse in those with persistent dysmature patterns than those without.