Standardising neonatal parenteral nutrition: a suggested approach

Despite efforts to standardise parenteral nutrition (PN) in the past, different regimens exist owing to lack of consensus in the face of a deficit of evidence from high quality randomised clinical trials. In this article an approach to standardisation is presented based on the NEON trial, the largest clinical trial of PN in preterm infants to date. The trial demonstrated, in addition to its primary objectives, that standardised formulations are acceptable to clinicians, safe, stable and improve the nutritional intake in preterm infants especially in the early postnatal period.