Newborn and Infant Nutrition: A Clinical Perspective

Infancy is the time of rapid growth after the fetal period. This stage of life requires optimized nutrition in order to achieve proper growth and organ development. The amount of nutrition needed to support and maintain adequate growth and optimal health, while maintaining homeostasis with other nutrients is determined by the individual requirements of infants. Nutritional needs differ during infancy and growth patterns are directly related to optimal nutrition. In the first six months, breast milk is the best source of nutrition for infants. Human milk may have particular advantages for premature infants due to the interrelationships between host defense, nutritional support and gastrointestinal development. Carbohydrates and protein, folate, calcium, zinc, fat and iron are a few of the nutrients that infants require to grow and stay healthy. This book unravels the recent studies on the role of nutrition in newborn and infant health. It consists of contributions made by international experts. The extensive content of this book provides the readers with a thorough understanding of the subject.