A Novel System to Study the Coordination of Sucking and Breathing in Newborns During Bottle Feeding

Current clinical practice lacks of quantitative tools for the assessment of nutritive sucking and its coordination with breathing. This paper aimed to fill this gap by integrating a module for neonatal breathing monitoring with a system for the measurement of sucking during bottle feeding. An in-house flow meter, based on two commercial transistors, has been tested in laboratory to assess its static response and dynamic characteristics (step response and capability to follow simulated neonatal breathing patterns). We designed a new electronic architecture for an easy integration of this module with our system for nutritive sucking assessment. In order to test the suitability of the integrated system for clinical use, we collected preliminary data from preterm and a term newborn in the pediatric unit of Santa Maria Goretti Hospital in Latina (Italy). The laboratory tests allowed us to select the sensing element that guaranteed the best sensitivity. The dynamic trials, which were carried out with a neonatal lung simulator, confirmed the suitability of the proposed system for monitoring neonatal breathing patterns. Finally, the preliminary data that were collected from newborns confirmed previous literature findings. These promising results pave the way to the clinical application of this first integrated system for the simultaneous assessment of breathing and nutritive sucking.