Chopin, Maud <br/><br/>
Creation of a “Scale of Food Behavior of Premature Infants toward Bottle Feeding” (ECEPAB) 

 -  2021.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 70 
<br/><br/> Orality is an essential axis in the care of severely premature children. Therefore, the quality of feeding for bottle-fed children is one of our main concerns with regard to the food empowerment process. The observation of the skills necessary to the coordination of sucking/swallowing/breathing can help when selecting the feeding strategy adapted to the maturation of the premature newborn. We did not find a clinical tool for this assessment. The objective of this study was to create a behavioral observation scale and prove its reproducibility in intra- and interobserver time. We carried out a prospective monocentric study including children born before thirty-three weeks of strict amenorrhea (n = 65). The interobserver reliability tests resulted in a high level of agreement among health care professionals (Kappa coefficient of 97 percent). The scale appears highly reproducible and can be used to identify the skills of newborns and evaluate the quality of bottle-feeding.