Timing of infant swallowing within the respiratory cycle during breastfeeding

• DOI: 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.849.10
• Publication Date: 2021-06-16T10:17:56Z
• Authors: Donna Tracy Geddes; Rohanna Stoddart; Vanessa Sakalidis; Peter Edwin Hartmann
• Keywords: Expiration; Interquartile range

During feeding, the infant must briefly cease respiration during swallowing. This can occur mid expiration (EE), inspiration (II), between and (EI) or opposite (IE). When majority of swallows (60–75%) are followed by this is considered a mature pattern. Since milk flow rates highly variable breastfeeding we hypothesized that frequency EE IE would not comprise swallows. Simultaneous measurements tongue movement, intra‐oral pressure, swallowing breathing were made for breastfeed in 10 infants (mean age: 47 days; range 18 – 115). For nutritive sucking (NS) most frequent phase swallow was (median %; interquartile range, 35; 18–53) EI (33; 11–49) (10; 0–21) II (4; 0–18). There no difference however occurred more often than I‐I (P<0.01). Less half NS expiration. Preliminary results suggest predominance do necessarily represent pattern breastfed ability to response may contribute success. Funding: an unrestricted research grant from Medela AG