NUTRITIONAL HYPOPHOSPHATEMIC RICKETS IN A PREMATURE-INFANT FED BREAST-MILK

HUMAN milk has been increasingly recommended as an optimal food source for infants. It offers immunologic protection against infection, encourages maternal-infant bonding and may protect the premature infant against necrotizing enterocolitis.1,2 Although human milk may be an ideal nutrient for term infants, there is doubt about its adequacy in providing correct nutrition for premature infants.1,3 As methods of providing adequate calories have improved, the growth rate of the premature infant may approach that of the fetus in utero. This rapid growth may unmask nutritional inadequacies of human milk that were not apparent at slower growth rates. For example, the very. © 1979, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.