It is known that nutrient odors stimulate the initiation of digestion. However, in preterm newborns who are fed by gavage or parenterally, exposure to the nutrient smell that initiates digestion disappears. For this reason, it is known that odor stimulation is applied to preterm newborns to improve nutrition. It is known that fragrances such as fragrant essential oils, the smell of breast milk, and amniotic fluid have positive effects such as shortening the transition time to oral feeding in preterm newborns, increasing nutritional tolerance and weight gain, increasing hunger symptoms, providing analgesic effect in painful procedures, and reducing hospital stay. However, no study was found to jointly evaluate the effect of odor stimulation with breast milk on early nutritional cues, transition time to oral nutrition and abdominal perfusion in preterm newborns.
The study was planned to determine the effect of breast milk odor applied during gavage feeding on early feeding cues of preterm newborns, the transition time to oral feeding and abdominal perfusion.