This team was amazing, and we are so thankful that we were given a chance to do this therapy with Lara so we could remove her tube.
Lara was born premature and experienced silent aspiration as an infant. She started to refuse all attempts at feeding by mouth and experienced growth failure. As a result, her medical team placed a gastrostomy tube when she was 5 months old. When Lara began the intensive feeding program at CSH, she was 2.5 years old, 100% dependent on gastrostomy-tube feedings, and was underweight for her age. Lara also had difficulties with larger volumes of intake from the tube, which led to vomiting and contributed to slow weight gain and growth.
Our Pediatric Feeding Disorders team's initial goals for Lara were to increase her consumption of a calorie-dense and nutritionally appropriate liquid and of a variety of nutritious smooth-textured foods by mouth. They also focused on gradually increasing her intake to help her learn to tolerate larger volumes without vomiting so that the team could reduce tube feedings. By the end of her intensive admission, Lara was meeting approximately half of her calorie, hydration, and nutritional needs via oral intake. Over the subsequent months, the team reduced and eventually eliminated all tube feedings as she began to consume larger volumes of solids and liquids by mouth.
Today, at age 4.5, Lara no longer receives tube feeds! She is consuming a wide array of smooth-textured foods and drinking larger volumes of various liquids. She’s learning to be more independent during meals, to chew and manage table-textured food safely, and to eat across a variety of settings with family and friends.
Her parents said, “This team was amazing, and we are so thankful that we were given a chance to do this therapy with Lara so we could remove her tube. Lara improved so much since she started the intensive feeding program. We know her eating and drinking is still a work in progress, but we plan to do and follow everything we learned there every day.”
Learn more about Children's Specialized Hospital's Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program.