Lindsey Sandoval,  

Sponsor or Client: 

Title:

Enhancing swallow-breath coordination in infant feeding using a biomimetic bottle nipple

Abstract:

Swallowing and breathing must be coordinated to prevent food from entering the respiratory tract and is, therefore, vital to maintaining healthy respiratory function and nutrition. Disruptions to this coordination are common in infants, especially in those fed on bottles, and can have significant implications. One difference between breast and bottle feeding is that commercial bottle nipples are hollow, whereas breast tissue is ducted. Creating a ducted bottle-nipple design may be the solution to facilitating improved swallow-breath coordination. In this study, we evaluated whether a bottle nipple that is ducted, rather than hollow, results in physiologic outcomes similar to breastfeeding. We raised one group of pigs on a biomimetic nipple (n=4) and one group on a cisternic nipple (n=4), and then exposed each group to the opposite nipple type at the end of infancy. We then measured a range of variables, including respiration rate, swallow rate, and the timing of swallowing during the breath cycle. We found no difference in coordination of swallowing and breathing across groups. However, when pigs raised on a cisternic nipple fed from a cisternic nipple, they swallowed at a faster rate than all other pigs (p < 0.0001), and exhibited a trend towards a lower respiratory rate; however, this difference was not significant. Overall, our study suggests that infants fed with a ducted bottle nipple feed more slowly and may breathe more frequently, aligning with previous findings that breastfed infants have higher breathing rates and blood oxygen saturation than bottle-fed infants.