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Study aim
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The Effect of Non-Nutritive Sucking on the Weight Gaining and the Length of Stay of Premature Neonates Under The Gavage in Neonatal Intensive Care Units of Selected Hospitals Affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran
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Design
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The clinical trial will have intervention and control groups (with 40 random samples in each group). Mahdieh and Mofid hospitals will be randomly selected as the intervention and control group's hospitals. Then premature infants in the NICU ward of each hospital, who have inclusion criteria, will enter relevant groups.
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Settings and conduct
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After obtaining the ethics code, the research environment will be randomly selected as a control or intervention group hospital by one of the nurses. After obtaining parental consent, the admitted infants in both intervention or control hospitals, who have inclusion criteria, will enter the relevant group. The infants of both groups will be hugged by the mothers, in order to be certain the infant is awake and the researcher will perform the gavage. In the intervention group, at the same time as the gavage, the non-nutritive sucking intervention will be performed by the mothers.
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Participants/Inclusion and exclusion criteria
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The neonate has 30 to37 weeks age
The neonate should be fed for more than 24 hours.
Breast milk is only used for feeding.
The neonate should have a first minute Apgar score of at least 3 and a fifth-minute Apgar score of at least 5.
Infants do not have chronic underlying conditions such as heart problems, respiratory problems, surgery,IVH, and congenital anomalies.
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Intervention groups
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Intervention group: In this group, non-nutritive sucking will be performed by the mother's little finger at the same time as the gavage.
Control group: Gavage will be performed without the intervention.
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Main outcome variables
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Weight gaining; Length of hospital stay