Document is current

Article History

Received: 24 April 2026

Accepted: 29 July 2026

First Online: 1 August 2026

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul – CEP/UFRGS; CAAE No. 71281223.9.0000.5347; approval No. 6,389,336), in accordance with Resolution No. 466/2012 of the Brazilian National Health Council and other applicable ethical standards for research involving human participants. At the time of the study, the Brazilian Neonatal Research Network comprised 20 participating centers. Access to the RBPN database was authorized by the Network, and the use of center-level data was individually approved by 18 of these 20 centers; therefore, only data from the 18 authorizing centers were included in the analysis. Because this study involved a retrospective secondary analysis of prospectively collected, de-identified data, the requirement for individual informed consent was waived by the Research Ethics Committee of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul – CEP/UFRGS). The investigators signed a Data Use Commitment Agreement (Termo de Compromisso de Utilização de Dados [TCUD]), committing to confidentiality, privacy protection, and use of the data exclusively for the approved research purposes.

Consent for publication: Not applicable.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.