BMJ  2004;329:193-198 (24 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.38131.675914.55 (published 18 June 2004)

Paper

Effect of bottles, cups, and dummies on breast feeding in preterm infants: a randomised controlled trial

¹ Department of Nursing and Midwifery Research and Practice Development, Women's and Children's Hospital, 72 King William Road, North Adelaide, South Australia, 5006, Australia, ² Department of Public Health, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia, ³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, 5005, Australia, ⁴ Department of Neonatal Medicine, Women's and Children's Hospital, 72 King William Road, North Adelaide, South Australia, 5006, Australia, ⁵ Department of Neonatal Services, Mercy Hospital for Women, Clarendon Street, East Melbourne, Victoria, 3002

Objective To determine the effect of artificial teats (bottle and dummy) and cups on breast feeding in preterm infants.

Design Randomised controlled trial.

Setting Two large tertiary hospitals, 54 peripheral hospitals.

Participants 319 preterm infants (born at 23-33 weeks' gestation) randomly assigned to one of four groups: cup/no dummy (n = 89), cup/dummy (n = 72), bottle/no dummy (n = 73), bottle/dummy (n = 85). Women with singleton or twin infants < 34 weeks' gestation who wanted to breastfeed were eligible to participate.

Interventions Cup or bottle feeding occurred when the mother was unable to be present to breast feed. Infants randomised to the dummy groups received a dummy on entry into the trial.

Main outcome measures Full breast feeding (compared with partial and none) and any breast feeding (compared with none) on discharge home. Secondary outcomes: prevalence of breast feeding at three and six months after discharge and length of hospital stay.

Results 303 infants (and 278 mothers) were included in the intention to treat analysis. There were no significant differences for any of the study outcomes according to use of a dummy. Infants randomised to cup feeds were more likely to be fully breast fed on discharge home (odds ratio 1.73, 95% confidence interval 1.04 to 2.88, P = 0.03), but had a longer length of stay (hazard ratio 0.71, 0.55 to 0.92, P = 0.01).

Conclusions Dummies do not affect breast feeding in preterm infants. Cup feeding significantly increases the likelihood that the baby will be fully breast fed at discharge home, but has no effect on any breast feeding and increases the length of hospital stay.

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Dummies do not affect breast feeding
BMJ 2004 329: 0. [Full Text] [PDF]

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It's not what you do but the way that you do it...?

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