Cup feeding associated with longer hospital stays

Specialties NICU

Published

Saw this posted at work. Average 10 day longer stay for cup fed babies!!?? I can imagine insurance companies pitching fits about that!

Of course this was a study with premature infants, not term infants.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070417194215.htm

I have seen the nipple averision on one or two of our kids. But this are kids that were tube fed/npo for months, and by the time they had the aversion, they didnt suck much on the pacifier either.

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

Our LCs don't write orders, just to clarify. And like I said, some are more laid-back than others. I wrote my earlier posts having just gotten home from work back to back 12 hours and they sound very discombobulated! The only ones who write orders for any kind of supplementation are pedis, and none of them write orders for cups. They don't care about 'nipple confusion', and I am soooo grateful. The LCs can merely 'encourage' the use of alternative supplementation and 'discourage' bottles. Some are more forceful in their encouragement/discouragement than other.

We (floor nurses) do indeed let mothers know that they have a choice, and that we are not the nipple police. And most moms choose not to cupfeed - most are breast- and bottle-feeding anyway. We are on nightshift, and the LCs work days. It is a constant struggle, believe me. Night shift nurses are continually getting nastygrams about how we don't 'support' breastfeeding. :madface:

But, much as I hate cupfeeding, I think there is a distinction to be made here between cup feeding a preemie (or former preemie) who has been in the hospital for weeks/months versus cup feeding a fulltermer who will be there at most a few days. I haven't seen any otherwise healthy fulltermers aspirate w/ a cup feeding, and it hasn't resulted in any longer hospital stays for anyone in the 3 years I have been where I am. For a preemie, I can definitely see the argument that there is a longer hospital stay - if for no other reason than it takes longer to learn to eat/gain weight. That said, if I am going to feed a kid something other than a bottle (even then only at mom's request), it will be with a syringe and not a cup. Less about the nipple confusion and more about ease for me & baby.

Remember, though, I am not for cupfeeding here!

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

One other thing...if we get a breastfed baby that's got low blood sugar, I absolutely refuse to cupfeed. If any mother or father gets their panties in a wad, I gently explain that we don't have time to be diddling around with cups and crap. I am not going to tax a brain already running low on glucose into having to learn how to drink milk from a cup.

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Specializes in Neonatal nursing (paediatric trained).
One thing that the nurses told me when my kids were in the NICU (and I have never read this anywhere...so someone let me know if this is a myth), I noticed that when they had their tube feedings stated through their noses, that the RN put a pacifier in her mouth (all the premies were done this way)...I asked why...and she said, "We do it so they can associate a full tummy/eating with sucking...otherwise, the rooting reflex starts to go away if they are getting nutrition without effort."

To me, that does make biological sense...but whether it's true or not, I have no idea.

I've never read it anywhere either (would like to if someone knows where there's an article), but it makes sense to me as well - and it's the explanation given and normal practice on our unit.

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Specializes in NICU, adult med-tele.

Its standard in our unit too, I just wonder about the whole "rooting reflex goes away" part of it. I am pretty sure that has to do with age of the kiddo, not neccessarily with not recieving PO feeds.

i just think at the point where most of these kids are ready to try PO they are already good friends with Mr Paci, and really, if they can switch from paci to breast shouldn't they be able to do bottle/breast? JMO :D

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Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.

Babies who have been orally intubated, suctioned, and otherwise had unpleasant oral experiences for a long time--"chronics"--can become orally aversive. It's a lot of work getting them to eat anything, by any method other than tube.

We had a kid like that recently--she'd take ~ 40 ml, then just quit. A lot of times there's issues w/reflux, too. She was on Zantac and Prilosec, helped, but she still wouldn't eat more. We had to send her back to tertiary for a fundal and a g-tube.

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