Introduction:
Very preterm infants experience high rates of medical complications and frequently have prolonged hospitalizations associated with the inability to achieve full oral feedings, often necessitating a gastrotomy tube (GT) or other form of feeding tube to be placed prior to discharge.1 It is the practice at our institution to surgically place a GT for secure home feeding in infants unable to attain full oral feeds. To facilitate earlier GT placement and expedite discharge home, we developed a model to identify infants at highest risk for needing a GT. In the process of developing this predictive model, several respiratory variables were identified as being associated with the inability to obtain full oral feeding prior to discharge. Despite many respiratory variables collected in the original cohort, exposure to high frequency ventilation (HFV) was the only respiratory variable that remained independently in the final predictive model. We aim to demonstrate the respiratory course of infants born at <30w GA, and how these data are associated with the ability to obtain full oral feeding. It has previously been suspected that positive pressure support in infants can interfere with the development of the swallowing reflex needed to obtain full oral feeds.2,3 In addition, since postmenstrual age (PMA) at the time of first oral feeding (PMAff) was the single most predictive factor in attaining full oral feeding prior to NICU discharge, we wanted to test the hypothesis that respiratory status predicts PMAff.