Comparison of the Short-Term Outcomes of Bullus Intermitant Calcium Administration with its Continuous Infusion in Premature Infants Parenteral Nutrition

Abstract

Nutritional support in hospitalized infants has always been one of the major challenges of neonatal medicine. One of the daily needs of infants, especially premature infants, is daily calcium intake. However, there is no consensus on the best way to administer calcium to these infants. we compared the short-term consequences of calcium bolus administration with continuous infusion in intravenous feeding of preterm infants. Method: A total of 78 premature infants with gestational age less than 32 weeks or birth weight less than 1500g were included in the study and then randomly divided into two groups of bolus and infusion treatment. Then the studied factors were extracted for each of the infants and compared between the two groups. Results: On the 45th day after hospitalization, the level of vitamin D was significantly higher among patients who received calcium infusion. Also, serum levels of calcium, ALP, and phosphorus, as well as the number of infants with ALP greater than 900, were significantly lower among infants who received calcium infusion. In using the ALP index alone to diagnose osteopenia, the incidence of osteopenia in patients who received bolus calcium was about three times higher than in patients who received calcium infusion.