Intervention Facilitates Oral Feeding in Premature Infants

The Effect of Early Skin Contact Combined With Breastfeeding on Oral Feeding in Premature Infants ≤30 Weeks of Gestation

Skin-to-skin combined with breastfeeding shortened the cycle of full-oral feeding in premature infants

This study is conducted at the level 3 NICU of the Children's Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China, a tertiary medical center. Infants admitted to the NICU are all outborn infants.

The study is approved by the Ethics Committee of the Children's Hospital of Fudan University. Signed parental consent is obtained before participants'entry into the study. The RCT is conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of skin-to-skin combined with breastfeeding reduce the transition time from tube feeding to independent oral feeding.

The recruited infants are assigned to intervention group and control group.

Data are presented as means ± sds for continuous variables with normal distribution and percentages (%) for categorical variables. One-way analysis of variance and Fisher exact test is used to compare infants' baseline characteristics among the two groups. All statistical analyses are conducted using SPSS. A p value of less than 0.05 is regarded as statistically significant.

Inclusion Criteria:

• gestational age ≤30 weeks
• birth weight < 1500g
• age of admission <72 hours
• no congenital malformation

Exclusion Criteria:

• OI > 40
• mother has trouble in communicating