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Updated: Feb 28, 2026
Author Spotlight: Studying the Impact of Maternal Dietary Deficiencies on Long-Term Offspring Health Outcomes
Published on: June 28, 2024
Nutritional support for low birth weight infants: insights from animal studies
11State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition,College of Animal Science and Technology,China Agricultural University,Beijing 100193,People's Republic of China.
Insights
Low birth weight (LBW) infants face growth and metabolic syndrome risks. Optimizing early nutrition is crucial for preventing long-term health issues in these vulnerable newborns.
Area of Science:
- Neonatal nutrition
- Pediatric metabolic health
- Growth and development
Background:
- Infants born with low birth weight (LBW), comprising ~15% of births, are prone to postnatal growth failure.
- LBW infants have an elevated risk for developing metabolic syndromes like type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and obesity later in life.
- Nutritional imbalances during critical fetal and neonatal periods significantly mediate these metabolic diseases.
Purpose of the Study:
- To summarize the physiological and metabolic defects in LBW infants from a nutritional standpoint.
- To review current nutritional intervention strategies for LBW infants.
- To offer insights into optimizing infant formulas and human milk fortifiers for LBW infants.
Main Methods:
- Literature review focusing on nutritional aspects of LBW infants.
- Summarization of physiological and metabolic challenges in LBW infants.
- Analysis of various nutritional intervention strategies and their components.
Main Results:
- Identified key nutritional factors contributing to LBW infant health issues.
- Reviewed diverse strategies including nutrient patterns, macronutrient balance, and specific supplementations.
- Highlighted the role of amino acids, fatty acids, nucleotides, vitamins, minerals, hormones, and microbiota manipulation.
Conclusions:
- Early nutritional optimization is critical for mitigating long-term health risks in LBW infants.
- A comprehensive approach to nutritional interventions, including advanced formulas and fortifiers, is essential.
- Further research into tailored nutritional strategies can improve outcomes for LBW infants.
Abstract:
Infants born with low birth weights (<2500 g, LBW), accounting for about 15 % of newborns, have a high risk for postnatal growth failure and developing the metabolic syndromes such as type 2 diabetes, CVD and obesity later in life. Improper nutrition provision during critical stages, such as undernutrition during the fetal period or overnutrition during the neonatal period, has been an important mediator of these metabolic diseases. Considering the specific physiological status of LBW infants, nutritional intervention and optimisation during early life merit further attention. In this review, the physiological and metabolic defects of LBW infants were summarised from a nutritional perspective. Available strategies for nutritional interventions and optimisation of LBW infants, including patterns of nutrition supply, macronutrient proportion, supplementation of amino acids and their derivatives, fatty acids, nucleotides, vitamins, minerals as well as hormone and microbiota manipulators, were reviewed with an aim to provide new insights into the advancements of formulas and human-milk fortifiers.
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