Human Milk Fortification for Very Preterm Infants: Toward Optimal Nutrient Delivery, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Growth, and Long-Term Outcomes.

Human milk is the preferred diet for very preterm infants due to short-term and long-term benefits for health and neurodevelopment. Fortification of human milk is required to deliver sufficient nutrients to attain recommended growth targets during the neonatal hospitalization. Intrinsic variability in human milk composition poses a challenge in clinical practice because some infants fail to meet recommended nutrient intakes even with existing approaches of standard (fixed-dose) and adjustable fortification. Individually targeted fortification is an emerging strategy to minimize nutrition delivery gaps through application of point-of-care human milk analysis and has potential to improve growth and related outcomes.