To Compare the Effects of Cup Feeding Versus Bottle Feeding in Preterm Infants Who are Unable to Fully Breastfeed

Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Yueh-Chu Peng, RN
Department of Nursing, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to know the benefit of using cup feeding in preterm infants who are unable to fully breastfeed.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to know the disadvantage of using bottle feeding in preterm infants who are unable to fully breastfeed.

Breast milk is optimal food for preterm infants. The ideal way for infants to receive breast milk is through suckling at the breast. Unfortunately, this may not always be possible. Preterm infants may not be able to breastfeed because they are not mature enough to coordinate sucking and swallowing. Therefore, they require supplemental feeding. Traditionally, bottles have been used; however, more recently, cup feeding has become a popular practice in many hospitals in an attempt to improve breastfeeding rates. We wanted to determine the effects of cup feeding versus bottle feeding on achievement of successful breastfeeding in preterm infants who are unable to fully breastfeed. We used five step of evidence-based nursing to solve this problem. First, we asked an answerable question. Is cup feeding better than bottle feeding on breastfeeding rate in preterm infants who are unable to fully breastfeed? Second, we used "preterm infant" AND "cup feeding" as key words to search all related studies in empirical databases (including Cochrane library, PubMed/Medline, EBSCO, CEPS, etc.). Third, we used an appraisal tool (NHI Critical Appraisal Skill Programme tools for randomized control trial) to appraise the selected four articles, and used Review Manager 5 to do meta-analysis. We found that preterm infants who were cup fed were more likely to be exclusively breastfed at hospital discharge. Fourth, we used the result to apply to clinical practice. We found cup feeding in preterm infant was better than bottle feeding on breastfeeding rate and fully breastfeeding rate. Finally, we assessed the performance of above procedures. We concluded that cup feeding could improve breastfeeding in preterm infants who are unable to fully breastfeed.