Appropriate nutritional intake is a major component of growth for all infants. Interests in nutrition customarily have been centered on the types of nutrients and caloric intake offered, e.g., the benefits of mother's milk over that of formula, presence/absence of growth factors, and more recently the potential advantages provided by probiotics early in life. An important aspect of infant nutrition that has been overlooked until recently is the ability of infants to take their nutrients by mouth safely, effectively, and successfully. The majority of healthy term newborns are often fed satisfactorily from the breast or bottle in hospital. As such, feeding difficulties typically are only identified after discharge. Recently, there has been more recognition that infant-related anomalies may impact successful feeding, yet basic knowledge regarding the physiology of feeding is still lacking. In the past two decades, health professionals along with the general population have also come to realize that a great number of infants born prematurely cannot readily feed by mouth, putting themselves at risk of adverse events that can range from oxygen desaturation to aspiration pneumonia. Long-term oral feeding difficulties resulting from such early incompetence have also been identified through the increased feeding disorders clinics that follow these infants.

No medical events solely impact on any patient, but this is even more so in the case of infants who are helpless and must rely on caregivers, principally their mother, for survival. Consequently, an infant's growth and development becomes a function, not only on their own maturing attributes and surroundings, but also, very importantly, on the quality of interactions between mother and infant during difficult times. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• What adequate infant oral feeding skills entail, be it breast or bottle feeding
• The maternal and external environmental factors that may affect the development of these skills
• The consequences that infant oral feeding difficulties may engender within their immediate milieu

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijped/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable:

Manuscript Due	Friday, 10 February, 2012
First Round of Reviews	Friday, 4 May, 2012
Publication Date	Friday, 29 June, 2012

Lead Guest Editor

• Chantal Lau, Department of Pediatrics, Section of Neonatology, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza BCM 320, Houston, TX 77030, USA

Guest Editors

• Katsumi Mizuno, Department of Pediatrics, Showa University of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
• Donna Geddes, School of Biomedical, Biomolecular and Chemical Sciences (M310), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
• Benoist Schaal, Centre des Sciences du Goût (Centre for Olfaction and Taste Science) CNRS (UMR 6265), Université de Bourgogne, France