Prescriptive birthweight charts can improve the prediction of adverse outcomes in very preterm infants who are small for gestational age.

Aim: We compared three anthropometric charts to determine which provided the best predictions for adverse outcomes in very preterm small for gestational age (SGA) infants to address a lack of consensus on this subject.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of infants born below 32 weeks, who were admitted to two-level three neonatal intensive care units in The Netherlands from 2008 to 2013. The birthweights of 1720 infants were classified as SGA using a conventional, gender-specific birthweight chart, based on births in The Netherlands between 2000 and 2007, a prescriptive, gender-specific birthweight chart, based on the same data but without risk factors for intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), and a non-gender-specific foetal weight chart derived from American ultrasonographic measurements.