Nutrition in the Infant: Problems and Practical Procedures. (Book Reviews).

Preedy V, Grimble G, Watson R, editors, Greenwich Medical Media, London, 447 pages, $299.20, ISBN 1-90015-162-6

This textbook, according to the first editor, covers the facets of nutrition and nutritional therapy for infants and it is recommended for those who are involved or interested in infant nutrition. The target audience is health professionals involved in paediatric clinical nutrition including paediatric gastroenterologists, paediatricians and dietitians.

It consists of 39 chapters written by 61 international authors, and the topics included are nutritional assessment, nutritional requirements, enteral, parenteral and oral nutrition, management of acute and chronic nutritional disorders and nutritional management of children with disabilities. The focus is on developed countries. However, nutritional assessment, nutritional screening methods during emergencies, nutritional supplementation and oral rehydration therapy are relevant to developing countries.

The main problem with this book is that its title is misleading as the primary focus is not on infant nutrition but on nutrition of infants and children and in some cases where there is no paediatric data the focus is on adults. An unsuspecting buyer would be disappointed as this text is not a comprehensive review of infant nutrition. Despite this, the book does have some excellent paediatric reviews on clinical management of acute and chronic disorders. It was interesting to find within this section discussions of nutritional requirements and support in HIV/AIDS and nutritional abnormalities due to Munchausen's syndrome by proxy. In addition other topics well represented in this text are nutritional screening methods during emergencies, nutrition and the measurement of body composition for children with special health care needs, the appropriate use of BMI, behavioural aspects of feeding disorders, protein nutrition of preterm infants, prevention of iron deficiency, nutritional supplementation in developing countries, dietary fibre and oral rehydration therapy. In particular, the strength of these sections are the good practical guidelines.

However, practical guidelines are missing from the sections on malnutrition and enteral nutrition. Other improvements that could be made are a more vigorous editing to exclude duplication of material and to standardise abbreviations. An introduction would have been useful so the reader could have some idea of the philosophy behind the book and therefore an understanding of why particular topics were included or excluded.

The book does provide a good clinical paediatric reference and would provide a useful reference for students, but at the price of approximately $300 it is best accessed through libraries.