Join our Research Study on Infant Feeding!

If interested, please contact Eleonora.Tamilia@childrens.harvard.edu or fill out this form

We want to learn more about sucking and feeding behavior in babies and infants, and to understand how we could monitor it reliably and objectively.

We are currently recruiting healthy participants (infants who are regularly feeding from a bottle, born at term, no history of medical complications during or after birth, no admission to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and no signs of feeding difficulties)

If you decide to join this research study: 

We will study your infant’s sucking activity while they are feeding on their regular bottle. While your baby is sucking, we will measure the activity of his or her facial muscles. To do so, we will place small flexible EMG (electromyography) sensors on the skin around your baby’s mouth and cheeks. EMG electrodes are placed on the skin, similarly to the electrodes routinely used to measure heart rate and breathing. Recordings will last about 10-20 minutes and will be performed at the MEG laboratory of Boston Children’s Hospital. 

You will receive a compensation of $100 (VISA or Amazon gift card) and parking reimbursement.

The most important potential risks to know about are: 

There are no known significant risks from placing the EMG electrodes on the baby’s face and recording muscle activity from them. These electrodes are safely used on babies in the hospital for clinical and research purposes, and your baby has likely already had these electrodes placed on his or her skin to measure heart rate and respiratory rate. Rarely, infants may have skin sensitivity to the electrode components resulting in redness, in which case they will no longer be used. Recordings can be interrupted at any time if the baby shows any sign of distress, or if you or the study team request a discontinuation. 

The most important potential benefits to know about are: 

There are no direct benefits for your baby. However, the research may give us a more reliable way of assessing and monitoring sucking and feeding ability in infants showing feeding problems at an earlier stage.

Who is eligible for this research study?

Your baby is eligible if they were born at term, have no history of medical complications during or after birth, no admission to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and have not shown any sign of feeding difficulties. 

Why is this research study being conducted?

Looking at how well a baby feeds in their first month of life could provide early opportunities to see how the infant is developing.  If we can diagnose feeding difficulties earlier, we can start treatments to improve infant health earlier. We want to see if by recording how the baby activates their facial muscles during sucking, we will be able to reliably assess the infant’s ability to feed and then predict how this develops over time. The possibility to assess and monitor the baby’s sucking skills through the use of non-invasive EMG sensors placed on the baby’s face is new, and could provide new knowledge on neonatal feeding skills to the clinical and research community.