Sleep patterns in infants under continuous feeding from birth

Continuous parenteral or enteral feeding of infants with major gastrointestinal problems (prolonged diarrhoeas, inflammatory digestive illnesses, anatomical anomalies necessitating surgical intervention, etc.) brings about a prolonged modification in nutritional and environmental conditions. The consequence of eliminating the feeding rhythms of the waking-sleeping rhythm in 16 infants between 1 and 8 months old were studied. In most of the infants the duration of sleep was close to that given by Kleitman in normals. Slightly decreased in 4 of the infants, these durations never showed significant differences from normative values. No delay was observed in the maturation of sleep patterns. The percentage and mean length of periods of quiet sleep were practically identical for all infants but a number of them showed large amounts of ambiguous sleep. The fact that none of these values evolved with age should be stressed. Paradoxical sleep periodicity was similar to that of normal infants, while the quiet sleep-paradoxical sleep cycles were shorter. In conclusion, the absence of feeding rhythms appeared not to modify greatly the sleep maturation and organization.