Nutrition in Pediatric Critical Care is central to survival, metabolic stability, wound healing, immune function, and long-term recovery. Critically ill children often face heightened metabolic demands, feeding intolerance, organ dysfunction, and rapid physiologic changes that require precise nutritional assessment and delivery. This session examines evidence-based strategies for enteral, parenteral, and hybrid nutrition in ICU settings.

Critical care professionals regularly attend a Pediatrics Conference to deepen their understanding of energy requirements, protein targets, micronutrient needs, fluid balance, and feeding protocols. In this session, participants will explore how acute illness alters metabolic pathways, how to avoid underfeeding or overfeeding, and how to manage nutrition for children on mechanical ventilation, ECMO, renal support therapies, or with multi-organ dysfunction.

A major theme is strengthening pediatric critical care nutrition pathways to ensure structured assessments, timely feeding initiation, safe advancement, and regular monitoring. Case examples highlight nutritional challenges in sepsis, trauma, burns, postoperative states, congenital heart disease, and neurologic disorders. Participants will also learn strategies for identifying refeeding syndrome, managing electrolyte shifts, and ensuring gastrointestinal tolerance.

This session integrates family-centred care by reviewing how to involve caregivers in nutrition decisions, support breastfeeding in the ICU, and provide culturally sensitive guidance. Disparities in global access to specialised formulas, parenteral nutrition, and monitoring tools are also explored.