Correspondence to

Objective The aim of the present work was to assess the value of non-nutritive sucking (NNS) measures as predictors of oral feeding performance in comparison to other putative predictors of feeding skills: respiratory support, post-menstrual age (PMA) at birth and the neonatal oral motor assessment score (NOMAS). Methods This was a prospective, observational study. Cox proportional hazards and non-parametric rank sum tests were used to assess the relationship between NNS and feeding outcome measures. The setting was neonatal intensive care units (NICU) in rural/academic, urban/tertiary centres in the USA. In all, 51 premature infants born between 25 and 34 weeks ’ PMA, birth weight 1512.3±499.4 g, were included in this study