Comparing the Effect of Breast Milk Odor and Incubator Cover on Nutritional Adequacy of Premature Infants: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Background: Premature babies face nutritional problems caused by underdevelopment and lack of coordination between sucking, swallowing, and breathing. Appropriate early interventions are needed to promote the nutritional adequacy of these infants. Objectives: This study was designed to compare the effect of breast milk odor and incubator cover on the nutritional adequacy of premature infants. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted on 105 preterm infants aged 28 - 33 weeks who were admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of Ali Ibn Abi Taleb Hospital in Zahedan in 2018. The subjects were selected via convenience sampling and randomized into three groups: breast milk odor (BMO), incubator cover (IC), and control. Infants in the IC group were placed in an incubator for two hours before feeding. In the BMO group, a gauze soaked with breast milk was placed 1.5 cm away from the infant’s nose in the incubator, and a prescribed amount of milk was given by a syringe to the infant through the mouth. The amount of milk that the baby orally received in the first 10 min (nutritional adequacy) was recorded by a camera, and the results were compared in the three groups. Results: One-way analysis of variance showed a statistically significant difference between the control group and the two groups of incubator cover and breast milk odor (P < 0.001) such that nutritional adequacy was lower in the control group than in the two other groups. Conclusions: Both the smell of breast milk and incubator cover improved the nutritional adequacy of premature infants and enabled them to orally receive more breast milk.

Effect of Olfactory and Gustatory Stimulations on Preterm Neonates’ Feeding Progression and Sniffing Away Feeding Tube

“…Oral nutrition is a golden standard for discharging a premature neonate from the NICU (Louyeh et al, 2020). It's important to improve preterm neonates feeding capabilities to meet their nutritional requirement and decrease the complications of delay feeding.…”

“…It was estimated that 15 million neonates were born prematurely worldwide and more than one million of them die because of prematurity (World Health Organization, 2018). Most preterm neonates stay in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for weeks or months due to various problems related to respiration, nutrition, temperature and other disorders (Louyeh et al, 2020;Radwan & Mohammed, 2019).…”

The effect of the early "skin-to-skin" contact method on breastfeeding

“…Miris majčinog mleka predstavlja značajan stimulans za nervus trigeminus. Nakon što novorođenče u nosu oseti taj miris, aktiviraju se pljuvačne i gastrointestinalne žlezde, što dodatno pomaže procesu dojenja (32). Pokazano je i da miris humanog mleka značajno utiče na to da se kod prematurusa brže pređe sa ishrane sondom na per os način hranjenja, odnosno podoj (9).…”