THE AIM of this study was to reveal trends in height, weight, and body mass index of preterm very low birth weight children from birth up to 5 years of age.
Material and methods: The present study is based on cross-sectional growth study carried out in the Clinic of Neonatology of Kaunas University of Medicine. Total sample consisted of 735 children from birth up to 5 years of age: 379 preterm children with very low birth weight; and 356 term children with normal (appropriate for gestation age) birth weight. Height, weight, body mass index were measured. In order to verify if normal birth weight group corresponds to Lithuanian standards, the data of normal birth weight group children were compared with Lithuanian standard measures. Then data of very low birth weight group and normal birth weight group were compared.
Results: We found that height and weight of very low birth weight girls and boys were significantly lower than height and weight of term normal birth weight infant from birth up to 5 years of age (p<0.01). The body mass index of very low birth weight girls was significantly lower than that of term normal birth weight girls at birth (p<0.01) and at age of 4 years (p<0.05). The body mass index of very low birth weight boys was significantly lower than that of term normal birth weight boys at birth and from age of 2 up to the age of 5 years (p<0.01). These data show that very low birth weight boys differently from girls were more slender than term normal birth weight infant of the same age.
Conclusions: It has been shown that preterm very low birth weight infants have different patterns of growth than term normal birth weight infants. The very low birth weight infants have not caught up on their retardation at the age of 5 years.