Eating as a neurodevelopmental process for high-risk newborns.

Many high-risk and preterm infants have difficulty with successful feeding and subsequent optimal growth during their stay in the neonatal intensive care unit as well as in the months after discharge. Environmental, procedural, and medical issues necessary for treatment of the hospitalized infant present challenges for the development of successful eating skills. Emerging data describe eating as a predictable neurodevelopmental process that depends on the infant's organization of physiologic processes, motor tone and movement, level of arousal, and ability to simultaneously regulate these processes.