Lay summary
Vitamins are essential nutrients with many roles supporting healthy metabolism. Extremely preterm babies are born before vitamins are transferred across the placenta in late pregnancy and are therefore at risk of vitamin deficiency. However, very little is known about vitamin status and vitamin requirements in preterm babies and whether vitamin deficiency contributes to complications of prematurity. We will use a new method of plasma vitamin analysis, requiring only small volumes of blood, to measure a broad range of vitamins to generate the first evidence of multivitamin status in extremely preterm babies. We then will determine whether complications of extreme prematurity are associated with plasma vitamin concentrations below the normal range. Our findings will provide essential data on the vitamin status of these babies, informing the level of supplementation required, and providing preliminary data for further interventional research on the impact of improved vitamin status on outcomes for these vulnerable babies.