Sleep-Wake States and Feeding Progression in Preterm Infants.
Jinhee Park, Susan G Silva, Suzanne M Thoyre and 1 others
PMID 31834117WHAT IT FOUND
Delayed feeding in 24 of 94 extremely preterm infants was linked with slower daytime sleep development and more night waking.
This is a monitoring signal, not evidence that sleep delay causes feeding delay.
Key findings
01As infants matured, active sleep decreased and quiet sleep increased during day and night; waking increased at night but not during day.
02Twenty-four infants formed a delayed feeding progression group; compared with 70 typical infants, they reached full enteral feeding 1.7 weeks later, first oral feeding 3.8 weeks later, half oral feeding 6 weeks later, and full oral feeding 6.5 weeks later.
03The delayed feeding group had a slower decrease in daytime active sleep and slower increase in daytime quiet sleep, and tended to be more awake at night.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample was 94 infants born at 28 weeks gestational age or less and 72.3% were African American, so findings may not apply to other preterm infants. The study was a secondary observational analysis, so it cannot show that sleep-wake states caused delayed feeding. The analysis was exploratory, with separate models for each sleep-wake state and no multivariate model because of small group sizes. Three postmenstrual age intervals were excluded because more than half of the sample had missing data.
Declared interests
The paper states the authors have no conflicts of interest to report.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that poor sleep caused delayed feeding. The study observed associations in a secondary analysis and could not separate cause from maturation or illness.