Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 May;106(5):727-732.
doi: 10.1111/apa.13751. Epub 2017 Feb 23.

Patterned auditory stimulation and suck dynamics in full-term infants

Emily Zimmerman  1 , Megan Foran  1
Affiliations

Patterned auditory stimulation and suck dynamics in full-term infants

Emily Zimmerman et al. Acta Paediatr. 2017 May.

Abstract

Aim: To determine whether patterned auditory stimuli, designed to mimic the natural burst-pause pattern evident in non-nutritive suck (NNS) with variations to the intraburst frequency, alter infants' NNS and cardiorespiratory patterning.

Methods: Sixteen healthy full-term infants participated in this study. Infants were fitted with electrocardiogram electrodes and a respiratory belt to measure cardiorespiratory patterning. Infants were offered a custom pacifier attached to a pressure transducer to measure NNS. Prior to the start of the study, a two-minute NNS and cardiorespiratory baseline was attained. Next, three auditory stimulation conditions were presented in the form of sucking clicks at interburst frequencies of 1, 2 and 4 Hz. Each of the three frequencies was played for two minutes.

Results: Separate repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed significant differences in NNS burst duration (p = 0.013), NNS cycles/burst (p = 0.010) and NNS bursts/minute (p = 0.005) across auditory stimulation conditions. No significant differences were evident in the cardiorespiratory outcomes.

Conclusion: We found that patterned auditory stimulation significantly reduced NNS dynamics and had no effect on cardiorespiratory patterning. The findings further suggest that infants attempted to modulate their suck pattern to the patterned acoustic stimuli by shortening their burst durations with fewer cycles per burst.

Keywords: Acoustic stimulation; Feeding; Infants; Non-nutritive suck.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest

Authors have reported no relevant financial and/or personal relationship with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence their work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
An example of the patterned auditory stimuli. These sounds were essentially suck sound clicks that were presented to the infant. The patterned stimuli mimicked the burst/pause pattern that is characteristic of NNS and all stimuli were 7 cycles/burst with a 6.5 second inter-burst pause period. The stimuli conditions differed in their intra-burst frequency and burst duration.
Figure 2
Figure 2
NNS is organized in bursts (black brackets) of sucking and pause periods for breathing. Each burst contains approximately 6–12 cycles (black circles). The suck pressure amplitude is measured in cmH2O. The suck dynamics included in our study included the following: NNS burst duration, NNS cycles per burst, NNS cycles per minute, NNS bursts per minute, NNS intra-burst frequency (Hz), and NNS amplitude (cmH2O).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Humphrey T. Some correlations between the appearance of human fetal reflexes and the development of the CNS. Prog Brain Res. 1964;4:93–135.
    1. Wolff PH. The serial organization of sucking in the young infant. Pediatrics. 1968;42:943–56. - PubMed
    1. Qureshi MA, Vice FL, Taciak VL, Bosma JF, Gewolb IH. Changes in rhythmic suckle feeding patterns in term infants in the first month of life. Dev Med Child Neurol. 2002;44:34–94. - PubMed
    1. Bingham PM, Ashikaga T, Abbasi S. Prospective Study of Non-Nutritive Sucking and Feeding in Premature Infants. ADC Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2010;95:194–200. - PubMed
    1. Bromiker R, Rachamim A, Hammerman C, Schimmel M, Kaplan M, Medoff-Cooper B. Immature sucking patterns in infants of mothers with diabetes. J Pediatr. 2006;149:640–3. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources