Assessment of Body Composition in Premature Children Submitted to an Early Stimulation Program

The main goal of the present study is to investigate anthropometric and physical measurements of pre-scholar aged children born preterm and their parents submitted to an early stimulation program, as well as to investigate children's eating practices, children's eating behavior and parental educational style in feeding.

This currently study is a segment of a previous project entitle: Early Intervention Program for Preterm Infants and Their Parents: establishing the impact at 18 Months Corrected Age (NCT02835612), which performed a continuous early stimulation in very preterm infant's families in their first 12 to 18 months. The previous study randomized preterm born children less than 32 weeks of gestational age and/or very low birth weight at Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA) - a tertiary hospital in south Brazil, in the following two groups: CONVENTIONAL GROUP (CG) that received standard care (skin-to skin care by mother, kangaroo care, and breast feeding policy) according to the routine care of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and, after NICU discharge, they were referred for a traditional follow up clinic taking care of the demands according to their necessity. INTERVENTION GROUP (IG): Skin-to skin care by mother, kangaroo care, breastfeeding policy plus massage therapy were made by the mothers until hospital discharge. After discharge, they received standard follow up care plus orientation for a continuous global simulation at home. The early intervention was performed according to developmental milestones, anticipating in one month evolutional step acquisition of motor and/or cognitive expected for corrected age. Besides that, we have a total of 10 home visits promoting guidance and supervision sessions.

In the present study, preterm born children aging between 3 to 6 years old and their mothers (or legal guardian) are once more invited to a one-day visit in the Clinical Research Center of HCPA for nutritional and clinical evaluation. In the visiting day, research participants are submitted to the following exams: body composition by electrical bioimpedance (InBody 770), anthropometric measurements (weight, height, skinfold thickness), clinical and physical evaluation (6 minutes walt test) and children's eating habits, eating behavior and parental educational style in food through specific questionnaires, such as Behavioral Pediatrics Feeding Assessment Scale (BPFAS), Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) and Caregiver's Feeding Styles Questionnaire (CFSQ). Data from neonatal period and from the follow up in the clinical care will also be analysed to associate with current nutritional and clinical findings. In addition to preterm population, a group of term born health children and their mother will be invited to participate with the goal to access reference values of the parameters investigated. This group of term born children (>37 weeks of gestational age and/or birth weight >2500g) will be recruited from the daycare of our hospital institution.

It is expect with these findings to determine if an early stimulation program could present a positive impact in anthropometric outcomes and nutritional aspects of our more vulnerable preterm born population.