Research
Mixed
Early postoperative enteral tube feeding (ETF) reduces infective complications and shortens hospital length of stay compared to nil-by-mouth management.
If you have had gastrointestinal surgery, ask your care team about starting tube feeding within 24 hours. This approach is proven to lower infection rates and get you home faster, even if your bowels haven't fully 'woken up' yet.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials which compared any type of enteral feeding started <24 hours after elective gastrointestinal surgery versus nil by mouth management concluded that early feeding reduced infective risks by approximately 30% and mean length of hospital stay by nearly one day.
Why this rating
Based on a systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs (Grade A evidence).
Source
Guidelines for enteral feeding in adult hospital patients
Mike Stroud et al. · Gut · 2003
DOI 10.1136/gut.52.suppl_7.vii1
clinical_guidelineCited 410×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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