Prescription of off-label and unlicensed drugs for preterm infants in a neonatal intensive care unit.

Objective: To evaluate the use of off-label and unlicensed medications in preterm infants hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit.

Methods: This nonconcurrent cohort study included preterm infants admitted to 3 neonatal intensive care units in 2016 and 2017 who were followed up during the neonatal period. The type and number of medications used were recorded for the entire period and classified based on the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical.

Premature birth: topics in physiology and pharmacological characteristics.

Objective: To review the main physiological and pharmacological changes related to prematurity, to promote the evidence-based clinical practice.

Methods: This is a narrative review whose research was carried out in the ScienceDirect and Medline databases via PubMed, searching for articles in any language from January 2000 to February 2020.

Results: Premature newborns are born before completing the maturation process that prepares them for extrauterine life, which occurs especially in the last weeks of pregnancy.