One complication that many doctors do
not tell you about that can be associated with LM is feeding
difficulties. When the baby begins feeding they can have difficulty
coordinating the suck, swallow, breath reflex and can choke because
the formula or breast milk enters the airway. The liquids can
penetrate the airway or even be aspirated in to the lungs, which can
cause frequent respiratory infections. The child can also have
difficulty staying awake during feeds because they are working so
hard to breathe and drink that they exhaust themselves. If the little
one struggles with this for an extended period of time they can
sometimes develop aversions (refusal to drink) or even dysphasia
(difficulty swallowing). These aversions can become amplified if the
child also suffers from reflux because they find it painful to eat.
When the LM little one does not eat enough they may struggle to gain
weight or maintain a healthy weight and be diagnosed failure to
thrive. If this is the case some of these children need intervention
such as feeding therapy, weight checks, and worse case scenario a
feeding tube, NG or Gtube (NG=tube through nose into stomach, Gtube
tube directly into stomach form external belly). The purpose of the
feeding tube is to supplement what the child is unable to take orally
to maintain a healthy weight. If you find that your baby is
struggling with feeding let your doctor know, they will be able to
closely monitor and see what the best strategy is to help. A few
tests that can be done to dx feeding difficulty is a modified barium
swallow, this test will show if your child has difficulty swallowing
and what types of liquids they have trouble with (thin, nectar
consistency, or honey consistency) and if they child aspirates or
penetrates on these consistencies. Another test that is often used to
dx reflux is an upper GI series where the barium is followed into the
stomach and they watch to see how often and how far up the barium
comes back up into the esophagus. If there is evidence of reflux you
can also ask your dr to have a PH probe test done where the monitor
the acid level and also how far and often the reflux comes up into
the esophagus. This test will show weather or not the reflux
medications that your child is on are working to lower the acid
levels of their stomach acid. LM is scary in itself but throw feeding
difficulties into the equation and it can be nerve wrecking and
exhausting.
Do you have a LM, TM/BM baby who is having difficulty feeding and need support?
Please contact our Executive Assistant and Feeding Support Specialist,
Christine Amaro, ChrissyGates2@aol.com
Disclaimer: CWL does not medical treat, diagnose or care for any individual associated with the organization.
That was one thing I wish I would have looked more into when we were told that Taylor had LM. I was told by doctors not to worry about it, but I should have and then at five and a half months I was certain something more was wrong. Thank you for sharing. If I could say one thing about the experience I have had (which was extremely traumatizing), I would say that everything will be okay and your child may not eat like others now, but someday they will. It was one of the scariest days of my life seeing a tube put down Taylor's nose, but now I honestly could not tell you how to feed a baby a bottle. It's just "normal" to us.
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