Interventions to improve the oral feeding performance of preterm infants

Area of Science:

• Neonatal development
• Pediatric nutrition
• Clinical intervention studies

Background:

• Preterm infants often struggle with oral feeding, impacting their nutritional intake and development.
• Developing effective interventions to improve oral feeding skills (OFS) in preterm infants is crucial for their health outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the efficacy of specific sucking and swallowing exercises in accelerating the attainment of independent oral feeding in preterm infants.
• To determine if these exercises lead to faster maturation of infants' oral feeding skills (OFS).

Main Methods:

• Randomized controlled trial involving very low birthweight infants assigned to control, sucking, or swallowing exercise groups.
• Sucking exercise involved pacifier use; swallowing exercise involved placing milk boluses on the tongue.
• Primary outcome: days to independent oral feeding. Secondary outcomes: overall transfer, proficiency, transfer rate, and OFS levels.

Main Results:

• The swallowing exercise group achieved independent oral feeding significantly faster (15 ± 2 days) compared to controls (21 ± 2 days; p = 0.019).
• The sucking exercise group showed no significant difference in time to independent feeding (19 ± 2 days) compared to controls.
• Infants in the swallowing group demonstrated more mature oral feeding skills (OFS) than controls.

Conclusions:

• Swallowing exercises are an effective intervention for facilitating independent oral feeding in preterm infants.
• Sucking exercises did not demonstrate efficacy in accelerating oral feeding attainment.
• The benefits of swallowing exercises likely stem from accelerated maturation of infants' oral feeding skills.