Northside Hospital - Special Beginnings

BEGINNING BREASTFEEDING YOUR BABY

Starting out, your most important goal is to establish and maintain your milk production. Once your baby is ready, your next goal is to begin the progression to breastfeeding. The road to breastfeeding a premature baby is different than for a full term baby. Full term babies may take several days to learn how to breastfeed. A premature baby is not meant to be awake for feedings every 2 to 3 hours like a full term baby. He may not yet have the ability to coordinate sucking, swallowing, and breathing. A premature baby may not have fully developed the ability to make the necessary suction to get enough milk from the breast. The ability to stay awake for full feedings, ability to suck, swallow and breathe and the ability to get enough milk from the breast will develop as your baby grows and matures. Feeding readiness cues may signal that your baby is ready to start learning how to breastfeed. It is important for you to know how to read your baby’s cues. Your baby’s nurse or your lactation consultant can help you learn to read these cues. Babies have different feeding abilities depending on their gestational age. The following chart gives guidelines for the developmental stages of feeding abilities for premature babies.

Corrected Gestational Age

Developmental Stages of Feeding

• Infant cannot yet coordinate suck-swallow-breathe • Will fall asleep fast • Not able to drink milk reliably • Will continue to be sleepy at breast

• May stick out tongue • May lick the nipple and begin to take a few sucks • May achieve latch and begin to suckle • Short bursts of sucking with long pauses • Rooting toward breast • Organize longer sucking bursts • Starting to drink a little better • Rooting toward breast • Sustained sucking and good suction on breast

Less than 30 weeks

30 - 32 weeks

• Can tire easily • Will do better at some feedings than others

32 - 36 weeks

• Learning to transfer milk

36 - 40 weeks

32 Special Beginnings in the Special Care Nurseries