Characterization of the transition to oral feeding in premature newborns.

Purpose: To characterize the transition from alternative feeding methods to oral feeding, to investigate techniques to favor feeding used during the transition, and the prevalence of breastfeeding at hospital discharge of premature newborns.

Methods: The following variables were considered: gender, gestational age and birth weight, classification of prematurity, time of transition to oral use, corrected gestational age and newborn weight at the beginning and end of the food transition, transition technique used, length of hospitalization and type of breastfeeding at discharge. For data analysis, the software SPSS version 25.0 was used considering the significance level of 5%.

Results: Significant results were observed between the premature groups for corrected gestational age at the beginning of the food transition, transition time, and hospital days.

Conclusion: The study concludes that the breast-probe technique was the most used. The length of hospital stay was shorter for the group of late and moderate preterm newborns. The transition time to the oral route was longer in the group of very preterm infants. Moreover, the proportion of exclusive breastfeeding at hospital discharge was similar between the prematurity classification groups.