Research Corner: Severe IVH and Biorhythms of Feeding

This just published paper by Gewolb and Vice, two well known neonatal feeding researchers, adds to our evidence base about severe IVH as a co-morbidity that can alter feeding progression in neonates 35-42 weeks PMA. As such, it may be an added consideration for consult to neonatal therapists in the NICU.

Gewolb, I. H., Sobowale, B. T., Vice, F. L., Patwardhan, A., Solomonia, N., & Reynolds, E. W. (2021). The Effect of Severe Intraventricular Hemorrhage on the Biorhythms of Feeding in Premature Infants. Frontiers in Pediatrics, 870.

OBJECTIVE: evaluate the underlying rhythms of suck,
swallow, and breath in a low-risk cohort of preterm infants, as
well as in cohorts with severe IVH, BPD, or BPD + IVH, thus
allowing us to determine whether neurological injury alone has
an adverse impact on the rhythms of infant feeding.
We hypothesized that the attainment of rhythmic stability of
suck-suck and suck-swallow dyads would be adversely impacted
in the high-risk preterm groups and that respiratory and
neurological issues might have different effects on the overall
biorhythmic patterns seen.

CONCLUSION
Severe IVH has a negative impact on the biorhythms of suck-suck
and suck-swallow in preterm infants 35–42 weeks PMA. If a
preterm infant with IVH but without BPD at 35–42 weeks PMA
lacks adequate feeding biorhythms, there could be a need for
additional workup to identify possibly undetected neurological
injury. The independent effect of severe IVH on feeding rhythms
suggests that quantitative analysis of feeding may both reflect
and predict neurological sequelae, and perhaps points to a critical
period where intervention may be most efficacious.

I am attaching is as it is open access on Google Scholar  Severe IVH and Feeding (2021)

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