This qualitative short-term study was designed to determine if preterm infants who are fed in response to their own feeding cues, gain weight at a faster rate than infants fed on a schedule that may not correspond with these cues. Self-regulatory feeding behaviors have been studied by several previous investigators, and growing interest in neurobehavioral development of premature infants led to the hypothesis that ability to exhibit feeding cues is enhanced when premature infants are demand fed as opposed to being fed on a schedule. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that demand-fed premature infants may have a decreased length of stay when compared with schedule-fed infants. Results indicated that demand feeding may shorten hospital stay (31 days for the study group versus 33 days for the control group) and increase a premature infant's ability to exhibit feeding cues (demand-fed infants demonstrated and average of 10.5 feeding cues per day versus 4.6 feeding cues per day for the schedule-fed infants).
© 1998 by The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.