الفهرس 
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Abstract
Around 15 million preterm babies are delivered per year worldwide indicating a global preterm birth rate of approximately 11%.
Preterm delivery leads to serious health sequelae on the newborn as well as a drastic emotional and economic burden on families and communities.
The main goals of preterm neonatal nutrition are the achievement of postnatal growth rate similar to that of normal fetuses of the same gestational age and to mimic fetal body composition and neurodevelopmental outcomes similar to term-born infants.
Primary objective is to asses and compare the effect of two strategies of parenteral protein intake on short-term outcome in preterm neonates admitted in NICU in children hospital, Ain Shams University in terms of weight and anthropometric measures and length of hospital stay.
Secondary objective is to asses these two strategies in the prevention of complications and comorbidities of preterms like (sepsis, NEC, intracranial hemorrhage and duration of oxygen dependence).
In this study, we recruited 40 preterm neonates and they were allocated randomly into 2 groups; group 1 (high protein group) and group 2 (low protein group).
There was no difference between the two groups as regards demographic data in terms of gestational age, gender and APGAR score or initial anthropometric measures.
As regards the increment in the weight attained in both groups, both groups demonstrated an improvement in their weights which was slightly higher in the high protein group yet it was statistically non-significant, the difference between both groups throughout the 4 weeks was also non-significant.
In this regard all over the 4 weeks, there was a slight difference in the increment of head circumference throughout the 4 weeks which was not statistically significant.
In the present study, hemoglobin level showed significant decrease throughout the study in both groups which was decreased slightly more in the low protein group but it lacks statistical significance.
In our study, the high group showed less duration of hospital stay than those of low protein group although this difference wasn’t statistically significant but even 1 day less in NICU decrease a huge economic and psychological burden and protect neonate from various complications like sepsis and bronchopulmonary dysplasia.
In the present study the amount of enteral feeding whether breast feeding or formula and average enteral feeding was increased in high protein group than low protein group which showed significant increase in first week but was non-significant in the following weeks.
In the present study there was no difference found between the two studied groups regarding oxygen support, inotropic support, intracranial hemorrhage, sepsis and mortality.