Maturation of oral feeding skills in preterm infants.

ABSTRACT:

Aim

Safe and successful oral feeding requires proper maturation of sucking, swallowing and respiration. We hypothesized that oral feeding difficulties result from different temporal development of the musculatures implicated in these functions.

Methods

Sixteen medically stable preterm infants (26 to 29 weeks gestation, GA) were recruited. Specific feeding skills were monitored as indirect markers for the maturational process of oral feeding musculatures: rate of milk intake (mL/min); percent milk leakage (lip seal); sucking stage, rate (#/s) and suction/expression ratio; suction amplitude (mmHg), rate and slope (mmHg/s); sucking/swallowing ratio; percent occurrence of swallows at specific phases of respiration. Coefficients of variation (COV) were used as indices of function

SUBMITTER: Amaizu N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2289993 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature