Study Status: Recruiting
Recruit Status: Recruiting
Study Type: Interventional
Official Title: Efficacy of a Manual Oral Stimulation Protocol in Preterm Infants to Shorten the Period Between Enteral and Oral Nutrition
Brief Summary:
Oral feeding in the neonatal period requires an accurate coordination between suction, swallowing and breathing. In premature new-borns and, depending on their gestational age, the coordinated work of those processes becomes jeopardised, being necessary to begin with an artificial enteral feeding. This situation results in lengthen their stay at the hospital until they are able to respond in a reliable way to their nutritional requirements orally, maintaining an adequate daily weight gain and without endangering their cardiorespiratory system.
This project is an experimental, prospective, blinded, randomized study, aimed to determine whether the application of a manual oral stimulation protocol in premature infants, hospitalized in a neonatal unit, reduces the transition time from enteral feeding to oral full feeding, while improves quality of feeding and shortens hospitalization time.