Mark Johnson, PhD, BM, BSc, FRCPCH

Biography:

Dr Mark Johnson is a consultant neonatologist at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and an honorary senior clinical lecturer in neonatal medicine at the University of Southampton. He is also currently the clinical director for neonatal medicine in Southampton. Dr Johnson graduated in medicine (BM) from the University of Southampton in 2004, and undertook an intercalated degree in biomedical science during his medical training. Dr Johnson was awarded a prestigious NIHR doctoral research fellowship to fund his PhD, which he was awarded by the University of Southampton in 2015. Dr Johnson’s PhD focused on change management in neonatal care in the context of nutrition, successfully implementing improved nutritional practices in order to improve the growth of preterm infants. Dr Johnson's research centres around the nutritional care and growth of premature babies, and the implementation of practice change in order to improve care, and has published on these topics widely, including systematic reviews looking at the use of early parenteral nutrition in preterm infants, the impact of enhanced nutrition on the neurodevelopmental outcomes of preterm infants and the effect of preterm birth on body composition and growth. He has also contributed to national and international guidance on nutritional care.

Abstract: Optimizing Growth and Body Composition in Preterm Infants: Approaches to Neonatal Nutritional Care in Clinical Practice

Current recommendations for the growth of preterm infants are that they should try and achieve the same pattern of growth they would they were still in-utero. This growth should be both the right quantity, but also the right quality in terms of body composition and the relative proportions of fat and lean tissue. This requires higher amounts of nutrition that can be difficult to deliver, meaning that preterm infants are at risk of poor growth and body composition that favours fat accretion over lean mass. This is important, as nutrition, growth and body composition in early life are associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes and longer-term cardiovascular risk. However, the exact pattern of growth that results in optimal short- and long-term outcomes in these infants is not well defined. This talk will explore current patterns of growth, the evidence for the pattern of growth for optimal clinical outcomes, and what can be achieved in clinical practice. It will then go on to consider different strategies for nutritional care and how these can be implemented in clinical practice for preterm infants in the neonatal unit to achieve optimal growth.