Total Parenteral Feeding of Infants

A “lifeline system” now permits even newborn infants to be totally fed intravenously when oral alimentation is impossible, inadequate, or hazardous. Already used in the management of almost 150 children, most of them infants, the technique relies on the passage of a catheter into the superior vena cava through which an individually adapted solution is infused. In the majority of infants, normal weight gain is eventually achieved.