Nutrition: Improving Nutrition and Growth in Very Low Birth Weight Infants

Project Aim

The aim of this project is to decrease the rate of growth failure in VLBW infants in Tennessee Neonatal Intensive Care Units.

The immediate aims of this project are to decrease by 10% the number of Tennessee VLBW infants with growth failure or severe growth failure at 36 weeks by March 2017.  Growth failure is defined for this project as having a weight less than the 10th percentile for age (Z score < -1.26) and severe growth failure as having a weight less than the 3rd percentile for age (a Z score of < -1.94), and to determine the delta Z score for VLBW infants cared for in Tennessee and decrease this delta Z score by 10% by June 2017.

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Project Narrative

Many very low birth weight babies born in Tennessee are small for gestational age. Provisional analyses of preliminary data demonstrate many of these infants experience further growth failure after delivery. In 2016, ten QI teams began collaborating in a data-driven effort to implement evidenced based practices to improve the growth of this population.

Project Resources

TIPQC Nutrition Tool Kit

State Leader

reddyRamasubbareddy Dhanireddy, MD, UTHSC Distinguished Professor, is Chief of Pediatrics and Medical Director of the Newborn Center at the Regional Medical Center, Regional One Health located in Memphis, TN.   Dr. Dhanireddy has been a practicing academic neonatologist for more than 38 years and is board certified in Neonatal Perinatal Medicine and Pediatrics.  He has published more than 80 research articles, several book chapters, served as principal and co-principal investigator in several research studies. He has served as a TIPQC Oversight Committee Member, since its inception.  In July 2017 Dr. Dhanireddy was named as the Infant Medical Director of TIPQC.

Participating Hospitals