RECORDING NONNUTRITIVE SUCKING IN THE NEONATE - DESCRIPTION OF AN AUTOMATIZED SYSTEM FOR ANALYSIS

A new method for automatic analysis of non-nutritive sucking in newbor n infants is described, which uses a specially designed computer progr am that analyses an analogue signal obtained from a pressure transduce r inside a pacifier. Validation is done with four independent methods: electromyogram, visual identification, control of the automatic treat ment and comparison of inter-observer results. a high degree of corres pondence is shown. The system was applied to 58 healthy full-term neon ates. Infants less than 24h old demonstrated a significantly different sucking pattern compared with the 3-day-old infant. The duration of t heir bursts was longer (3.7 vs 2.8 s), the frequency of their sucking was lower (1.7 vs 2.0 Hz) and the variability of their sucking pattern was greater. These results also testify to the validity of the method inasmuch as the values for the different sucking parameters are simil ar to corresponding values presented earlier.