Nutritional support management in premature infant in a Mexican (Guanajuato) hospital.

Introduction: Premature infant has special nutritional and physiological recommendations. Nutritional support promotes an appropriate weight gain. While this support is monitored according to international guidelines, the metabolic and infectious complicationscan be reduced and prevented.Objective: To describe the management of nutritional support in premature infant in a Mexican (Guana juato) hospital.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study, where a survey of 22 questions was applied by the direct method to 24 people (eight physicians, eight nurses and eight undergraduate medical students). The survey included the criteria for prescription of nutritional support,during stay hospitality of the premature, according to international standards of American Society of Pediatrics, ASPENand ESPEN and ADA (for example, anthropometric and metabolic monitoring, prescription of the energy and nutriments, days of fasting and the beginning of feeding).Results and discussion: Of the 24 health professionals surveyed, 40% provided the NS, to the premature, for two to four days of life, 60% for two to six days of life. 70% of them recommended breastfeeding. 58% considered the weight and age of prematurity, to calculate the energy and nutrient requirements. The monitoring of NS, through biochemical and anthropometric indicators was performed in 50 and 23% respectively.Conclusions: The management of nutritional support in premature infants was heterogeneous, and a lack of monitoring anthropometric and biochemical indicators, according to the recommendations, in thepres cription of energy and nutriments. With this evidence, it is proposed to establish and standardize the management criteria for nutritional support, and likely, reduce metabolic or infectious risk in premature babies.