Oro-Motor Intervention Protocol to Improve Sucking Behavior among Neonates with Immature Sucking: An Experimental Protocol

BACKGROUND: Oro-motor intervention methods were previously adopted to improve the sucking pattern but there is still a lag in the structured protocol for improving sucking behavior in infants with immature sucking. Thus, this study is aimed to develop a structured protocol for the Oro-motor intervention to improve sucking behavior. METHOD: Using the prospective observational study design, neonates with poor suck (producing less than 10 sucks per minute), under NG tube feeding, and maintaining oxygen saturation at room air were included. A total of 6 subjects were enrolled in this study and they were treated with Oro-motor intervention protocol. The Sucking rate and LATCH score were taken as the outcome measures and measured at beginning of intervention and after 2 weeks of intervention. RESULT: The mean pre-test and post-test values for sucking rate were is (8.66), (32.5) and LATCH were (4.66), (8.16) respectively. The data collected showed that the protocol framed for Oro-motor intervention was significantly effective in improving quality of feeding among infants with immature sucking behavior. CONCLUSION: The structured Oro-motor intervention protocol improves the feeding performance in infants with poor sucking behavior and improves the LATCH score. All the infants included in this study where under nasogastric tube feeding, thus the structured protocol can be considered to be helpful in weaning from NG tube feeding.