Oral motor skills and growth of premature babies in their first two years of life

ABSTRACT Purpose: to analyze the development of oral motor skills of premature babies in their first 2 years of life and relate them to growth. Methods: a longitudinal study conducted in a hospital in Southern Brazil with 40 premature babies at birth and 4, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months of corrected age. Anthropometric and oral motor skills were assessed using the Schedule for Oral Motor Assessment. Mean and standard deviation were used to describe the distribution of variables. The comparison between study variables was performed using Student's t-test. Statistical significance was set at ≤ 0.05. Results: the mean gestational age at birth was 32.47 weeks. The corrected age at 4 months was 3.37 months, and 82.5% of the sample was already receiving complementary feeding and had oral motor dysfunction, which later evolved to normal. Growth was significantly associated with oral motor function for solid food at 12 months. Children with normal oral motor functions had better Z scores for weight-for-age, weight-for-height, and body mass index-for-age than those with oral motor dysfunction. Conclusion: oral motor dysfunction predominated in preterm babies at 4 months of corrected age. However, at 6 months of corrected age, preterm babies already had adequate oral motor function for different food consistencies and maintained favorable evolution in this skill until the end of the second year of corrected age. Babies with adequate oral motor function had better growth indicators at 12 months, justifying early speech-language-hearing intervention in preterm babies’ oral skills.