Infants born preterm have difficulty with coordinated feeding skills due to fragile physiological stability, immature state regulation, and maturation-related low muscle tone. Feeding difficulties often affect length of hospital display for these infants. Swaddling has been found to reduce pain and stress responses and improve neurobehavioral state regulation and physiological stability in infants born preterm in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Swaddling is used inconsistently during feeding in the NICU and has not been critically examined as an intervention to improve quality of preterm infant’s feeding skills. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of body swaddling during bottle feeding on feeding efficiency and feeding quality in infant’s born preterm.
