This is a bibliographic study on non-nutritive sucking in pre-term infants. Objectives: to characterize and analyze the scientific production on non-nutritive sucking in pre-term infants and identify how the transition from gastric to oral feeding takes place as well as how it begins and develops by considering the stimulation of non-nutritive sucking. Methodology: review of secondary sources (MEDLINE and LILACS). Results: pre-term infants presented a stable clinical condition, without cardio-respiratory, neurological or gastro-intestinal alterations. Gestational age varied from 30 to 35 weeks and the weight from 1,400 to 1,800 g. The stimulus for non-nutritive sucking used was a pacifier or bottle nipple. The time and frequency of stimulus application varied. As a result of the stimulation programs, there were early hospital discharges and greater weight gain. Literature on this subject, particularly that of national authorship, is scarce and the articles do not address a detailed description of the transition from gastric to oral feeding, thus leaving a gap that deserves to be further studied.
sucking behavior; infant low birth weight; premature