Osteopenia - premature infants

The best treatment is prevention. This may be difficult to achieve if your baby is very immature (less than 28 weeks). Therapies that appear to improve bone strength include:

• Give extra Ca and P supplementation to breast milk.
• Use specially formulated premature formulas when breast milk is not available.
• Maximize the intake of Ca and P in IV nutritional fluids.
• Early initiation of a daily physical activity program may be helpful. If your baby has liver problems, additional Vitamin D supplementation may be needed.

If your premature baby has a fracture it will usually heal with use of a splint on the broken bone, gentle handling, and increased attention to dietary intakes of Ca, P, and Vitamin D. There may be an increase risk for fractures throughout the first year of life for very premature infants with osteopenia of prematurity.

Recent long-term studies suggest that very-low-birth weight is a significant risk factor for osteopenia (usually called ?osteoporosis?) later in adult life. Whether aggressive efforts to treat or prevent osteopenia of prematurity in the NICU can decrease this risk as an adult is unknown.

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