The influence of chewing gum on the return of intestinal motility after abdominal surgery in children and its mechanism of action

Objective To study the influence of chewing gum on the return of intestinal motility after abdominal surgery in children and its acting mechanism from two aspects of neural and humoral factors. Methods Eighteen patients were enrolled in our study. Each patient underwent a intestinal anastomosis and was then assigned randomly to the gum-chewing group (n=17) or control group (n=17). The patients in the gum-chewing group chewed sugarless gum three times daily for 1 hour each time in the morning,afternoon and evening from the first postoperative morning until the day they began oral intake. The time of first passage of flatus was recorded for evaluating the return of bowel movement. The blood samples were taken immediately after the 3rd gum-chewing for detecting the level of gastrin and catecholamine (including norepinephrine and epinephrine). Results The first passage of flatus occurred on postoperative 63 hours in gum-chewing group,which was significantly sooner than the postoperative 78 hours in the control group (t = 5.665 ,P 0.05). There was significant difference of norepinephrine between two groups (t = 3.335,P 0.05); However,there was no significant difference of epinephrine between two groups(t = 1.201,P 0.05). The value of blood gastrin showed no significant difference between two groups(t = 0.418 ,P 0.05); Conclusions Chewing gum can hasten the return of intestinal function after abdominal surgery in children. According to our study data,the mechanism is related to the level of blood norepinephrine,but it is not related to the level of blood gastrin and catecholamine.