Purpose; The purpose of this study was to identify factors contributing to postoperative feeding difficulties in infants following cardiac surgery.
Methods; A retrospective cohort study used chart audit of 555 consecutive infants who underwent cardiac surgery. Ten variables were analyzed as possible predictors of postoperative feeding difficulties including; diagnosis, demographics, details of surgery and postoperative course. Results; Mean patient age was 40.0days(range; 1.2~98.0days) and mean patient body weight was 3.9kg(range; 1.2~7.7kg). At hospital discharge, 496(89.3%) infants were orally fed and 58(10.7%) were not. Overall mean hospital length of stay was 20.0(±22.5) days. Mutilvariate logistic regression analysis revealed vocal cord palsy(odds ratio 9.50), length of postoperative intubation(odds ratio 5.73), neurologic complication after surgery(odds ratio 3.50) and weight at surgery(odds ratio 0.38) as independent predictors of failure to feed orally at discharge from hospital. Conclusion; Risk factors for feeding difficulties in the postcardiac surgery infant are vocal cord injury, prolonged intubation, neurologic complication after surgery and low weight at surgery . Early identification of neonates at risk for feeding difficulties may lead to development of strategies to reduce morbidity, improve patient care.