Parents want to know often what are some of the feeding issues that their baby may face and that depends on the gestational age, the maturity of your baby. If your baby is 35 weeks and above, they may be very mild to no problems with feedings. Your nurse and your doctor will evaluate your baby. But for the most part, those babies have short or transient problems with feedings. Before 35 weeks, babies are not mature enough to coordinate their suckling and swallowing mechanism, and therefore babies will not be able to eat everything by mouth. There will be an assessment on your baby. But many babies at that gestational age will need a little tube in their stomach to be fed until their maturation is such that they can safely coordinate the sucking and the swallowing mechanism. Babies that are 30 weeks or less are at a different risk of gastrointestinal problems and their feeding is much more challenging. Before 30 weeks, babies cannot receive large amounts of nutrition in their stomach right away. And therefore your doctor will speak to you about the need for nutrition that will be supplemented, for a short period of time hopefully, in their veins. So the more premature infants will be slowly fed, although sometimes it stays 2 weeks in their stomach. In the meantime they will receive nutrition in their veins to meet their growing needs.