Infants born preterm (<37 weeks) often experience feeding problems during hospitalization. Whether difficulties persist or have long-term sequelae on childhood eating is unclear. We aimed to describe the oromotor eating skills (e.g., chewing/swallowing), eating behaviours (e.g., food neophobia), food parenting practices (e.g., pressure to eat) and dietary patterns of preterm children during late infancy (6-12 months) and early childhood (>12 months-7 years) and to determine whether these differ from term-born peers. We identified 67 articles (57 unique studies) for inclusion. We used random-effects meta-analysis of proportions to examine the prevalence of oromotor eating skill and eating behaviour challenges among preterm children, standard meta-analysis for comparisons to term-born peers, and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach to assess the certainty of evidence. Forty-three percent (95% CI 24-62%) of infants and 25% (95% CI 17-33%) of children born preterm experienced oromotor eating difficulties and 16% (95% CI 4-27%) and 20% (95% CI 11-28%), respectively, exhibited challenging eating behaviours. During late infancy and early childhood, oromotor eating difficulties (OR=2.86, 95% CI 1.71, 4.77, I2= 67.8%) and challenging eating behaviours (OR=1.52, 95% CI 1.11, 2.10, I2= 0.0%) were more common in those born preterm vs. term: however, the certainty of evidence was very low. Due to low number and heterogeneity of studies, we narratively reviewed literature on food parenting and dietary patterns. Mothers of preterm infants appeared to have heightened anxiety while feeding and utilized coercive food parenting practices; their infants reportedly received less human milk, started solid foods earlier and had poorer diet quality compared to term-born peers. In conclusion, meta-analyses show preterm children experience frequent oromotor eating difficulties and challenging eating behaviours throughout the early years. Given preterm birth increases risk of later obesity and diet-related chronic disease, research examining caregiver-child interactions on subsequent diet is warranted. PROSPERO# CRD42020176063.
