ABSTRACT
Approximately 60,000 or 1.5 % of infants are born each year with very low birth weight (VLBW ≤ 1500 grams), and nearly all of these infants are born prematurely. Improved survival rates due to better prenatal care and medical advances are associated with both short- and long-term morbidities, and growing evidence indicates that these infants have increased risk for cardiovascular (CV) disease in adulthood (Saigal and Doyle, 2008). The increased risk may be partly explained by alterations in developing systems in response to environmental stressors as suggested by the concept of -fetal programming- (Barker, 2002). Although beneficial in the short-term, these alterations persist and may be maladaptive in later life.
