Babies born much too early, before 32 weeks of pregnancy, need very careful feeding while they grow in the neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU. Breast milk — either the mother's own milk or carefully screened donated milk from other mothers — is the recommended foundation for these babies. But…

If your baby is in a neonatal intensive care unit, you have probably seen a curved chart on a screen or on the wall, with a dot marking your baby's weight each day. That chart answers a deceptively simple question: is this baby growing the way we would hope? For a baby born early, the answer is…

If your baby was born premature and is in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), you have almost certainly seen the nurses weigh your baby every morning. That weight gets plotted on a chart — sometimes on paper, sometimes on a screen — that shows whether your baby is growing as expected.