Development of an Intra-Oral Vacuum Pressure Measuring Device to Assess Breastfeeding

Background: There are numerous advantages of breastfeeding (BF) for both the mother and the newborn and every effort should be made to prevent its failure. Nipple trauma and latching problems, often seen in infants with tongue tie (TT) can contribute to development of poor intra-oral vacuum pressure and lead to BF failure. This dysfunctional BF could be to quantitatively assessed by measuring the inter-oral cavity vacuum pressure.

Methods: We developed a simple and portable oral manometer for measuring intra-oral vacuum pressures using off the shelf components and without the need for a complex setup or operator skills.

Results: The working manometer prototype has 3 main components: 1) pressure transducer, 2) tubing assembly, 3) a laptop computer.Further details are as follows: The pressure transducer: This is the main component and uses an absolute pressure transducer with DAQ system (National Instruments) and is connected to the tubing assembly on one end and a computer on the other. Tubing assembly: It consists of disposable Silicone Rubber Tubing (5F); Blunt Tip Dispensing Needle with Luer Lock and has an in line hydrophobic Filter (PTFE 13mm)that acts as barrier to fluids’s entry into the transducer assembly. Computer: A laptop with a dedicated software developed utilizing NI LabVIEW for data acquisition

Preliminary testing: It was performed on a full-term healthy infant and a adult volunteer. In infant the sucking process was characterized by a burst-pause sucking pattern where a bursts occurring at a typical frequency of ~ 1 Hz, separated by pauses of ~2 s. This pattern manifested in three stages: continuous, intermittent and paused.

Conclusion: We report the development of oral manometer for quatitative assessment of BF. It needs futher studies and validation and can be potentially used for assessement of BF in infants with and with out TT and other cranio-facial malformations.