Singh 2018.

Study characteristics
Methods	RCT
Participants	87 infants with birth weight 1500 g to 2000 g and postnatal age < 48 hours who required gavage feeds Exclusion criteria:  perinatal asphyxia (cord blood gas or first blood gas after birth with pH < 7.0 or base excess > –16 mmol/L and Apgar score < 5 at 10 minutes), major congenital malformations/surgical conditions that could interfere with feeding, and severe growth restriction (defined as birth weight below the third percentile)
Interventions	Routine assessment of gastric residual was done in both groups Intervention group: only the quality of gastric residual was assessed. A maximum of 0.5 mL of gastric contents was aspirated before each feed. If the residual was haemorrhagic or was repeatedly bilious (more than 1 time) with or without vomiting or abnormal abdominal examination, feed interruption was done. The volume of gastric residual was not assessed Control group: both volume and quality of gastric residual were assessed. The entire volume of gastric residual was aspirated before every feed. If the aspirate was > 50% of feed volume or > 3 mL, whichever was greater, feeds were withheld. Also, if the aspirate was bloody or bile‐stained, feeds were withheld
Outcomes	Primary outcome:  time to reach full enteral feeding ≥ 120 mL/kg/d Secondary outcomes:  time to regain birth weight; time to regain 120% of birth weight; incidence of late‐onset culture‐proven sepsis (≥ 72 hours); NEC (Bell stage ≥ 2); number of occasions feeds were discontinued for > 24 hours or were not increased for > 24 hours
Notes	Feeds were started on day 1 or later, once the infant was haemodynamically stable. Feeds were started at 3 mL every 3 hours and were increased by 3 mL every 9 hours in infants with birth weight 1500 g to 1750 g. For infants with 1751 g to 2000 g birth weight, feeds were started at 6 mL every 3 hours and were increased by 3 mL every 6 hours. Infants were fed breast milk if available and preterm formula after parental consent was obtained when breast milk was not available. Feeds were fortified when enteral feeds of 150 mL/kg/d were achieved