Increased respiratory drive as an inhibitor of oral feeding of preterm infants

Autor: Martha J. Miller, Richard J. Martin, Brian J.M. Timms, Juliann M. DiFiore
Rok vydání: 1993
Předmět:
Zdroj: The Journal of Pediatrics. 123:127-131
ISSN: 0022-3476
DOI: 10.1016/s0022-3476(05)81555-0
Popis: This study was designed to determine whether increased respiratory drive induced by inhalation of carbon dioxide would alter the reflex and voluntary components of feeding. For 10 preterm infants (mean +/- SD: postconceptional age at study, 34 +/- 2 weeks; weight, 2.1 +/- 0.2 kg), four trials of nutritive feeding were offered: two while the infants were inhaling a gas mixture containing 40% oxygen and two while the infants were breathing 40% oxygen and 7% carbon dioxide. Nasal airflow was monitored with a pneumotachygraph. Pressure-sensitive catheters in the esophagus and in the feeding nipple were used to detect swallowing and sucking. Sucking frequency and pattern, rate of swallowing, end-tidal carbon dioxide, and minute ventilation were recorded for 30-second epochs during feeding. When the inhaled gas mixture was switched from 40% oxygen to 40% oxygen and 7% carbon dioxide, sucking frequency decreased from 53 +/- 10 to 48 +/- 12 and from 54 +/- 12 to 40 +/- 19 sucks/min, respectively (p < 0.005). Frequency of swallowing also fell during the two feeding epochs on 7% carbon dioxide, from 45 +/- 15 to 40 +/- 15 and from 43 +/- 14 to 31 +/- 16 swallows/min (p < 0.003). Thus acute hypercapnea was accompanied by a decrease in rate of both sucking and swallowing during nutritive feeding. Increased ventilatory drive may directly inhibit nutritive feeding behavior in premature infants.
Databáze: OpenAIRE