Methods for measuring body composition in newborns - A comparative analysis

The complexity of nutritional support in infants now makes it necessary to use body-composition methods for accurate nutritional assessment. For this goal a variety of methods of determining body composition have been introdu ced in research on human nutrition. The purpose of this paper is to review the background and to describe the precision of established techniques, foc using on the results obtained in newborns and infants. The ideal method for assessing newborns' and infants' body composition should be non-invasive, re.. producible, accurate, and also relatively inexpensive. In addition, we summarize in this paper data on body composition obtained in normal and pa thological newborns by using dual X-ray absorptiometry, one of the referenc e techniques.