Oral Feeding Skills of Very Premature Infants

Extremely premature infants, born at a gestational age (GA) of less than 29 weeks, are exposed to numerous complications in the neonatal period (digestive, cardiac, infectious, respiratory, neurological) and in the longer term (neurosensory and cognitive development, impaired growth, oral feeding disorders). In premature babies, non-nutritive sucking is present from 27 weeks' gestation, but the "suck, swallow, breathe" sequence, which is essential for feeding autonomy, does not mature until 34 weeks, with wide individual variations. Therefore, preterm newborns initially needs a gastric tube to receive enteral nutrition. During this period, the oral sphere is often dys-stimulated by the insertion/attachment of the gastric tube, aspirations of oral secretions, etc. The earlier children are born, the more frequent and serious the pathologies associated with prematurity, the more frequent th