- 作者：Rosemary White-Traut ; Kristin Rankin ; Ruth Lucas ; Nicole Shapiro ; Li Liu ; Barbara Medoff-Cooper
- 关键词：Sucking skills ; Microstructure of infant sucking behaviors ; Preterm infants ; Nutritive sucking pressures
- 刊名：Early Human Development
- 出版年：2013
- 出版时间：October, 2013
- 年：2013
- 卷：89
- 期：10
- 页码：833-837
- 全文大小：370 K
Background
The Medoff-Cooper Nutritive Sucking Apparatus (M-CNSA) has been used to objectively measure sucking maturation in preterm infants. The M-CNSA is able to accurately detect sucking pressures less than 20 mm Hg, however lower pressure thresholds have not previously been used in research.Aims
To determine if differences are observed in the number of sucks and maturation in the number of sucks over time when the minimum pressure threshold used to detect a suck is 7 mm Hg compared to 20 mm Hg using the M-CNSA.
Study design
Descriptive.
Subjects
A convenience sample of 171 healthy premature infants born between 29 and 34 weeks gestational period who were part of a larger randomized controlled study.
Outcome measures
The number of sucks detected during weekly five-minute oral feeding observations using 7 mm Hg and 20 mm Hg.
Results
Significantly more sucks were detected using the 7 mm Hg vs 20 mm Hg threshold at all time points. At both pressure thresholds, the mean number of sucks detected during the five minute feeding observation increased over time. The difference in the number of sucks detected at 7 and 20 mm Hg did not change over time (p = 0.50).
Conclusions
Using the lower threshold of 7 mm Hg compared to 20 mm Hg resulted in more sucks detected while consistently measuring improvement in sucking over time. Detection of more sucks and sucks at a lower pressure threshold allows clinicians and researchers to more accurately assess oral feeding skills among premature infants.