Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Health professionals have great difficulties to establish the adequate and safe time to start breast feeding in preterm infants. There is a need to develop a standardized tool to help health professionals to comprehensively evaluate preterm infant readiness to transition preterm infants´ feeding from gastric to oral, and encourage breast feeding practice in neonatal units. Aims: To clinical validate the accuracy of a Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale with 60 clinically stable preterm infants. METHODS: Global accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale cut-offs, compared to milk intake through translactation, were estimated through ROC curves (Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves). RESULTS: The global accuracy of Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale was 74.38%. The highest sensitivity and specificity were obtained for three cut-offs: 28, 29 and 30. Since higher specificity (75.68%) for the Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale was found at a score cut-off=of 30 showed higher specificity (75.68%), it should be used as a cut-off score to select initiate breastfeeding the preterm newborns' oral feeding readiness. CONCLUSION: The Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale is considered valid to assist health professionals to initiate preterm feeding in view of promoting safe and objective breastfeeding.

Highlights

  • Health professionals have great difficulties to establish the adequate and safe time to start breast feeding in preterm infants

  • A acurácia global, sensibilidade e especificidade do instrumento, em comparação à ingestão de leite por meio da translactação, foram estimadas através de curvas ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves)

  • Due to the lack of standardized evidenced-based methods to evaluate preterm readiness to breast feeding we developed the Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale (POFRAS)(8-9) to help health professionals to systematically establish the adequate time to safely initiate breast feeding in preterm infants and encourage breast feeding practice in neonatal units

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Summary

Introduction

Health professionals have great difficulties to establish the adequate and safe time to start breast feeding in preterm infants. Aims: To clinical validate the accuracy of a Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale with 60 clinically stable preterm infants. Methods: Global accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale cut-offs, compared to milk intake through translactation, were estimated through ROC curves (Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves). Results: The global accuracy of Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale was 74.38%. Conclusion: The Preterm Oral Feeding Readiness Assessment Scale is considered valid to assist health professionals to initiate preterm feeding in view of promoting safe and objective breastfeeding. Objetivo: Evaluar la precisión de el Instrumento de Evaluación de la Prontitud de los Prematuros para Iniciación de la Alimentación por Vía Oral. Como el punto de corte=30 del instrumento mostró mayor especificidad (75,68%), sugerimos que debe utilizarse para seleccionar los prematuros con prontitud para la alimentación oral. Conclusión: El Instrumento se valida para ayudar a los profesionales de la salud en la iniciación de la alimentación en los prematuros, con vistas a la lactancia de manera segura y objetiva

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