Effect of oropharyngeal colostrum administration on salivary secretory IgA levels in extremely/very low birth weight infants fed by gastric tube / 中国新生儿科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To study the effect of oropharyngeal colostrum administration on salivary secretory IgA (sIgA) levels in extremely/very low birth weight preterm infants fed by gastric tube.Methods:Preterm infants with birth weight <1 500 g ( n=90) hospitalized in neonatal intensive care unit of the Affiliated Shenzhen Maternity & Child Healthcare Hospital of Southern Medical University from August 2020 to January 2021 were enrolled as research subjects. They were assigned into observation group and control group. The observation group accepted oropharyngeal administration of colostrum before being fed by gastric tube once every 3 hours for 7 days. The control group was given normal saline before each feeding. Other nursing interventions were consistent with the observation group. Saliva samples were collected at the 2 hour and 7 day after birth and the levels of slgA were tested. SPSS 26.0 statistical software was applied to analyse the data. Results:A total of 81 preterm infants completed this study. The content of salivary sIgA in observation group (42 cases) on 7 day after birth were significantly higher than those on the 2 hour after birth [15.4 (0.6, 106.7) μg/ml vs. 0.6 (0.0, 5.3) μg/ml] ( P<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the sIgA levels in the saliva of the control group (39 cases) at the 7 postnatal day and 2 hour after birth [0.0 (0.0, 1.4) μg/ml vs. 0.0 (0.0, 5.2) μg/ml] ( P>0.05). The content of salivary sIgA in observation group were significantly higher than those in control group on the 7 day after birth, the difference was statistically significant ( P<0.05). The salivary sIgA levels in the observation group were negatively correlated with the starting time of oropharyngeal administration of colostrum ( r=-0.330, P<0.05), and positively correlated with the total number of oropharyngeal administration of colostrum ( r=0.388, P<0.05). Conclusions:Oropharyngeal colostrum administration can improve the levels of salivary sIgA of extremely/very low birth weight preterm infants fed by gastric tube.