Cardiovascular responses to feeding in the neonate during the first four days of life.
Prior work has demonstrated acute cardiovascular responses associated with breast and bottle feeding of newborn infants that consist of increases in both blood pressure and heart rate. This current study sought to determine if the amplitude of these responses is related to the age of the infant and/or the amount of nutrient ingested during the study period. Results show that the magnitude of the feeding responses does not change over the first four days of life. In a second study it was found that changes in systolic blood pressure during feeding are positively correlated with volume of nutrient intake during the initial phase of feeding (r = +0.75, p < 0.01). These results suggest that some of the individual variability in the increase in blood pressure during feeding is related to the amount of nutrient ingested. It is not known whether these differences are due to differences in sucking effort or other aspects of feeding efficiency.
Cohen
M
M
Department of Pediatrics, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, NJ 07112, USA.
Brown
D R
DR
Myers
M M
MM
D001794:Blood Pressure; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002320:Cardiovascular Physiological Phenomena; D004435:Eating / Q000502:physiology*; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D007225:Infant Food; D007231:Infant, Newborn / Q000502:physiology*