With a focus on bottle feeding, this course provides immediately applicable practical information to help clinicians better identify and treat the factors that impact successful oral feeding of preterm and ill term infants. Utilizing a multidisciplinary supportive team approach—both in the NICU and after discharge to early intervention follow-up services—the course emphasizes strategies to facilitate infant abilities and develop caregiver feeding skills.

The objective is to identify feeding readiness and provide intervention strategies from a framework of normal development. Special medical conditions, including respiratory disease, gastro-esophageal reflux disease, gastrostomy tube feedings and oral-motor disorders, will be discussed. A holistic approach integrating the medical fragility of these infants is emphasized.