Nutritive sucking pattern--from very low birth weight preterm to term newborn.

Unlabelled: The contribution of maturation and stimulation to the development of oral feeding was investigated, with two main objectives: (1) to analyze the nutritive sucking pattern of very-low-birth-weight newborns from their first oral feeding to the acquisition of independent oral feeding, and (2) to compare the nutritive sucking patterns of these babies, after feeding autonomy, with healthy term newborns.

Methods: Two groups were considered for analysis. Group 1: N=15 Very-Low-Birth-Weight (VLBW), gestacional age (GA)=28.