Maturational changes in the feeding behaviour of infants - a comparison between breast-feeding and bottle-feeding

Abstract

Aim: To obtain a better understanding of the changes in feeding behaviour from 1 to 6 months of age. By comparing breast- and bottle-feeding, we intended to clarify the difference in longitudinal sucking performance.

Methods: Sucking variables were consecutively measured for 16 breast-fed and eight bottle-fed infants at 1, 3 and 6 months of age.

Results: For breast-feeding, number of sucks per burst (17.8 +/- 8.8, 23.8 +/- 8.3 and 32.4 +/- 15.3 times), sucking burst duration (11.2 +/- 6.1, 14.7 +/- 8.0 and 17.9 +/- 8.8 sec) and number of sucking bursts per feed (33.9 +/- 13.9, 28.0 +/- 18.2 and 18.6 +/- 12.8 times) at 1, 3 and 6 months of age respectively showed significant differences between 1 and 6 months of age (p < 0.05). The sucking pressure and total number of sucks per feed did not differ among different ages. Bottle-feeding resulted in longer sucking bursts and more sucks per burst compared with breast-feeding in each month (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: The increase in the amount of ingested milk with maturation resulted from an increase in bolus volume per minute as well as the higher number of sucks continuously for both breast- and bottle-fed infants.