Oral disorders in children born prematurely by Frédérique Quetin
2008 Winner : Oral disorders in children born very prematurely
Paediatrician Frédérique Quetin is currently senior registrar-neonatal intensive care assistant at the Institut de puériculture et de périnatalogie in Paris.
Her action research project aims to answer the following questions: do children born very prematurely suffer more from oral disorders than babies born at term? Why and how should this be remedied? Fifteen or so professionals working at the Institut are involved in the project, including paediatricians, psychologists, child psychiatrists, speech therapists, paediatric nurses, PMI managers…
“Orality refer to all of the functions linked to the mouth, that is to say feeding, language, breathing, gestation”, explains Frédérique Quetin: “We are studying oral disorders in children born very prematurely and no longer showing any sings of serious brain damage: during the first weeks of their life, they were fed through a stomach tube, and were even given help breathing.
What are the repercussions?
Our study enabled us to observe that 90% of children born very prematurely have suffered from one or more eating disorders in the first three years of their life: problems swallowing, difficulty in eating chunks of food or drinking via other means than a baby bottle or glass (with a straw for example)”.
She goes on: “The disorders have been very little studied; indeed, we do not even know the risk factors: seriousness of initial pathology, length of intubation, weight at birth, how early the birth took place? However, understanding these disorders to a greater extent would perhaps enable to give better adapted oral care during the neonatal period, opting for less aggressive or less frequent treatments, or by encouraging positive stimulation of the oral sphere through massages of certain parts of the face and mouth”.
