The Energy Costs of Prematurity and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Experience

Premature neonates are in an energy deficient state due to (1) oxygen desaturation and hypoxia events, (2) painful and stressful stimuli, (3) illness, and (4) neurodevelopmental energy requirements. Failure to correct energy deficiency in premature infants may lead to adverse effects such as neurodevelopmental delay and negative long-term metabolic and cardiovascular outcomes. The effects of energy dysregulation and the challenges that clinicians in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) face in meeting the premature infant’s metabolic demands are discussed. Specifically, the focus is on the effects of pain and stress on energy homeostasis. Energy deficiency is a complex problem and requires a multi-faceted solution to promote optimum development of premature infants.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Antioxidants

• Publication date

  2018-03-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/antiox7030037PMID 29498645PMCID 5874523
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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