Areej Al Abdulrahman
King Abdul-Aziz Medical City, Saudi Arabia
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Neonatal Biol
Prematurity is one of the significant factors for infants’ hospital admission. The oral feeding of preterm neonates concerns healthcare providers and parents. Feeding has a considerable effect on the child’s growth and development. Feeding and swallowing are significant factors for preterm Health and readiness for hospital discharge decisions, as in Figure 1. Many specialties from healthcare providers intervene according to their part in solving the feeding and swallowing problems. Healthcare providers can include nurses, speech therapists, Occupational Therapists, and Physical therapists. Each of these specialties has an intervention, protocols, and guidelines for feeding stimulation and activation. In this review, a summary of the best interventions will be presented. Also, any extra interventions from other specialties, such as the Osteopathic approaches, will be included. Some of the interventions are studied in the literature, such as Oral and Non-Oral sensorimotor stimulation, Oral motor stimulation, multi-stimulation, and positioning for feeding. In addition, many comparisons were made between non-nutritive sucking with a gloved finger, breath interaction, and phase of respiration with swallowing during the non-nutritive sucking. A study tested using the Transcutaneous Auricular vagus nerve stimulation with promotor feeding. Others studied the Finger feeding method versus the syringe-feeding approach. Oral Motor Interventions (OMIs) and Oral Sensory-Motor Stimulation (OSMS) were studied as feeding interventions. systematically review the literature for the best effective oral motor interventions for feeding and swallowing in preterm infants. The oral motor interventions (OMIs) are nonnutritive sucking (NNS), verbal/ perioral stimulation, and NNS plus oral/ perioral stimulation. In the review, they concluded that some OMIs show promising effects for enhancing feeding/ swallowing in preterm infants; methodological limitations and variations in results across warrant careful consideration of their clinical use. In Calk P (2019) systematic review of oral motor stimulation to improve oral feeding in preterm infants. His Analysis revealed that the best practice is utilizing four areas of intervention: oral motor stimulation, non-nutritive sucking, oral support, and co-interventions. The review summarizes that immature suck-swallow-breath coordination, absent, delayed, or impaired oral reflexes; abnormal muscle tone; and impaired motor control impact the infants’ safe and successful oral intake of adequate nutrition. Strong evidence in the review supports the use of peri-oral and intra-oral stimulation for pre-feeding readiness and preparation to promote successful oral intake, increase the suction, decrease liquid loss, and promote efficient nutrition intake. Another systematic review of the effect of pre-feeding oromotor stimulation on preterm infants. The conclusion was that the practice of pre-feeding oral stimulation has a variety of protocols; thus, results should be comprehended carefully. Keywords: Preterm, feeding, swallowing, oral, sensory, motor, intervention.
DAreej Al Abdulrahman completed her MSc from Liverpool University. The MSc degree was in Clinical Research Administration. She is a clinical supervisor in physiotherapy. She has an experience 21 years of in Pediatric Physical Therapy. The last ten years as Neonatal Physical Therapist. She initiated the Early Intervention Program at King Abdullah Specialized Children’s Hospital. A member of the Bone Health committee in collaboration with the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to prevent preemies fractures, and the team won a National Safety Award in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.