Preterm infants difficulties in breastfeeding

Abstract

Despite the encouragement of breastfeeding, the national rates of breastfeeding in premature babies are still low, what makes it important to analyze the efforts that may adversely affect the desired outcome. The purpose of this study was to characterize the practice of breastfeeding in premature infants admitted to the Intermediate Care Unit. The study included 16 mothers and newborns pairs with gestational ages between 28-34 weeks and breastfeeding was realized in observation of a protocol designed by the researchers. As for picks, it was observed that 30.8% of infants had difficulty opening the mouth and 53.8%, to holds it; regarding the respiratory pattern 93.8% showed no coordination between sucking, swallowing and breathing. After feeding the breasts remained full in 75% of cases, infants showed signs of withdrawal in 50% of cases at the beginning of feeding, falling asleep quickly. As for the posture, during feeding, 73.3% of infants were not in position “tummy to tummy” with their mother. It was concluded that all participants showed some signs indicative of problems during breastfeeding.