Clinical Outcomes of Rapid Versus Slow Enteral Feeding Advancements in Preterm Infants

Abstract

Background: Adequate nutrition is important for optimum growth and neurological outcome. Aim of work: To evaluate the effect of rapid versus slow enteral feeding advancements on the clinical outcomes of preterm infants. Patients and methods: This is a prospective-observational study over a period of six months. It included all preterm neonates with gestational age less than 37 weeks and haemodynamically stable from September, 2017 to March, 2018. Neonates (Results: The study included 100 neonates were divided into two groups - 50 cases slow group (I) and 50 cases rapid group (II). There was a statistically significant difference as regarding, duration of hospital stay with mean 19.37±10.36 and17.89±9.58 days in group I and II respectively, and time taken to reach full enteral feeding with mean 14.89±3.89 and 9.18±3.58 days between slow & rapid feeding groups respectively. The mortality was 18(36.0%) deaths in group I versus 7(14.0%) deaths in group II. Conclusions:Rapid advancement of enteral feeding is associated with shorter duration of hospital stay, shorter duration to achieve full enteral feeding, and decreased mortality in comparison to slow advancement group.