MAgda: Unfortunately the term non-nutritive suck was coined on bottle fed
babies to refer to the faster-paced sucking that is done on a pacifier. There
is plently of research on that subject. Just use non-nutritive suck as the
keyword in your lit search. You may find yourself disatisfied with the
information because it truly does NOT APPLY to breastfed babies.

IMHO we need to drop that terminology and use some other term like comfort
sucking or call-up sucking to describe the two-sucks per second rate of
sucking. We may even need to do research to determine if the two-sucks-per-
second rate is even accurate for breastfed babies! This faster sucking is
rendering food, albeit in small quantities. It probably is also doing other
magnificant CNS things, as well.

Some of the concepts presented in the non-nutritive suck studies may well
apply, like better state control and faster growth, etc. but the terminology
is really misleading as is the definition and some of the concepts, theories
and treatments that have been developed for bottle fed babies as a result of
the research. It really is time for us to do our own research and stop trying
to borrow ill-fitting terms that may ultimately get us in trouble.

Alison K. Hazelbaker, MA, IBCLC