PURPOSE: to investigate the aspects of the oral motor sensorial system of preterm babies of teenage mothers, in order to compare them with those of non-teenage mothers. METHODS: the sample was constituted of 15 mothers and 18 newborn babies, from which two mothers had multiple pregnancies, 4 preterm babies were born from teenage mothers and the others 11 from non-teenage mothers, all of them in the same condition of interns in the maternity of "Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco". RESULTS: it was evidenced that assistance to pregnancy care is inadequate, both for teenage mothers as well as for non-teenage mothers, and this may be related to socioeconomic factors. The preterm newborns with very low weight have more difficulty during the transition from leaded feeding to oral feeding, both in the group of teenage mothers as well as in the group of non-teenage mothers. CONCLUSION: biological immaturity of the preterm babies can lead, in most cases, to immaturity of the oral motor sensorial system, independently of their mother's age, teenager or not. The found alterations in the oral motor sensorial system may have taken place due to the quantity of medical devices used by the newborns. There was no difference in the weight on birth between teenage mother's babies and those of non-teenage mothers, a fact that may be explained by the homogeneity of the group, composed by mothers between 16 and 19-year old.
Child Welfare; Pregnancy in Adolescence; Infant; Premature; Pregnancy Complications; Prenatal Care
