BackgroundPremature infants are defined as neonates born before 37 weeks gestational age a newborn infant, or neonate, is a baby under 28 days of age. During these first 28 days of life, the baby is at highest risk of dying. It is thus crucial that appropriate feeding and care are provided during this period, both to improve the infant’s chances of survival and to lay the foundations for a healthy life.Objective: To evaluate the effect of prefeeding oral stimulation program on oral feeding skills among preterm infants.Material and Methods: A quasi experimental approach and pretest- posttest control group design was adopted. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 40 preterm infants i.e. 20 in each experimental and control group. In experimental group, intra and peri-oral stimulation was given for 3 minutes and 2 minutes on pacifier, 2 times a day at 2 hours intervals for the duration of 4 days and in control group routine care was done. Data collection was done using oral feeding skills assessment scale. The collected data were analyzed by calculating frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, chi-square, and ‘t’ test.Findings: The results revealed that in pre-test, there was no statistically significant (p<0.05) difference in all levels of feeding skills among preterm infants between experimental and control group but in post-test there was statistically significant (p<0.05) difference found in mean score of all levels of feeding skills among preterm infants in experimental and control group. The difference between the pre-test and post-test mean scores of all levels of feeding skills among preterm infants in experimental group was statistically more significant in comparison with control group after provision of 4 days of prefeeding oral stimulation programme. Hence prefeeding oral stimulation programme was found to be effective in improving the oral feeding skills among preterm infants.Conclusion The effect of prefeeding oral stimulation program on oral feeding skills among preterm infants is effective and it helped in the improvement of preterm infants feeding skills.
Prefeeding oral stimulation program, feeding skills, preterm infants
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