A Weight Estimation Strategy for Preterm and Full-Term Infants

Global Pediatric Health • December 2017.

Abdel-Rahman SM, Paul IM, Delmore P, James L, Fearn L, Atz A, Poindexter B, Al-Uzri A, Lewandowski A, Harper B, Smith PB.

Weight is the foremost marker of health outcomes in infants; however, the majority of community workers and health care providers in remote, resource-constrained settings have limited access to functional scales. This study develops and validates a simple weight estimation strategy for infants that addresses the limitations of current approaches.

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An anthropometric survey of US pre-term and full-term neonates

Annals of Human Biology • December 2017.

Abdel-Rahman SM, Paul IM, Delmore P, James L, Fearn L, Atz AM, Poindexter BB, Al-Uzri A, Lewandowski A, Harper BL, Smith PB; Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act – Pediatric Trials Network.

Anthropometric data prove valuable for screening and monitoring various medical conditions. In young infants, however, only weight, length and head circumference are represented in publicly accessible databases. Our aim was to characterise length and circumferential measures in pre-term and full-term infants up to 90 days post-natal.

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Project babyTAPE Measures Up

On December 18, 10 days ahead of schedule, the PTN babyTAPE team enrolled its 2,000th participant.

On January 29, the babyTAPE databse was locked.

The data collected in the babyTAPE study will be used to develop, design, and validate a weight estimation tool, similar to what is pictured, specific to infants.

The study is chaired by Dr. Susan Abdel-Rahman from Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO.  The PTN Program is chaired by Dr. Danny Benjamin and operationalized by Katherine Berezny (Program Manager at DCRI).

Baby TAPE activates first site

Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center became the first site activated to enroll patients into the Baby TAPE study this week.

Weight is the foremost marker of health and health outcomes in infants. For infants receiving care in a neonatal intensive care unit, however, it can be nearly impossible to remove or account for the weight of life-sustaining medical equipment prior to obtaining a scale-based weight. The relative error introduced by such equipment can significantly affect the safety profile of the medicines these infants receive.

The Baby TAPE study will collect the necessary anthropometric data on children under the age of 3 months with the eventual goal of developing, designing, and validating a weight estimation tool for newborns and young infants. Anthropometric data on length and girth surrogates will be collected in 2000 infants at approximately 5–10 study sites.