Linkages Winter 2012
Linkages is a newsletter for professionals who work with children who have ongoing health conditions or disabilities
Disclaimer: The inclusion of any resource or website in Linkages does not imply endorsement.
| Volume 18, No. 1 |
Winter 2012 |
In This Month's Newsletter: Feeding Issues in Children with Special Needs
- Getting Nutrition Care for Children with Special Health Care Needs
- Oral Sensitivity
- Tube Feeding: Handouts for Families and Resources for Professionals
- Infant Feeding Issues - CEARP Video
- Feeding the Child with Cleft Palate
- Feeding Issues in Children with ASD
- Nutrition Management of Children with Rett Syndrome
- Nutrition Interventions for Children with Special Health Care Needs
Getting Nutrition Care for Children with Special Health Care Needs
The Washington State Community Feeding Teams provide an interdisciplinary approach to address feeding/nutrition concerns for children with special health care. They work directly with families to help caregivers resolve important issues related to feeding and nutrition.
Oral Sensitivity
- Strategies for Treating Children with Severe Oral Aversion: Provides tips for practitioners treating children with pediatric feeding disorders. Includes suggestions for dealing with oral aversion and defensiveness.
- Sensory Motor Treatment to Assist with Pre-feeding: Feeding tips for parents with sensory sensitive children. Includes information for families on how to introduce the smells, texture and taste of foods. A Spanish version is also available.
Tube Feeding: Handouts for Families and Resources for Professionals
Handouts for Families
- Gastrostomy Care Sheet & Problem Solving Tips- Includes tips on feeding or giving medicine thru a gastrostomy or J-tube, daily care, solving problems such as: leakage, skin irritation, extra skin growth around the stoma, and tube blockage. Also available in Spanish, Russian, and Vietnamese.
- Homemade Blenderized Tube Feeding: Instructions for Bolus Feeding- How to make homemade liquid meals for your child’s tube feeding.
- Your Child’s Nasogastric Tube- Information to for parents on how to place the tube, daily care, how to check for proper placement, feeding using a syringe or pump and how to flush the tube.
- Making a Tube Fed Doll for Your Child- Pretend doll play can be a nice way to become friendly with the tube feedings and have the doll play mirror a child’s reality.
- Using a BD Syringe Pump to Feed Your Child- Instructions for feeding your child formula or breast milk at home using a BD syringe pump. Includes a list of supplies and how to troubleshoot pump alarms or feeding problems
Resources for Professionals
- Technical Aspects of Enteral Feeding- Information from the University of Washington’s Gaining and Growing resource. Includes:
- Types of Enteral Feeding
- Administration of Tube Feeding: Bolus and Continuous Drip
- Equipment for Continuous Drip Feeding
- Nutritional Considerations
- Medication and Tube Feedings
- Social Concerns with Tube Feeding
- Transition to Oral Feeding
- Complications of Tube Feedings- Provides common complications as well as possible causes and interventions for nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, reflux, large residuals, tube feeding syndrome, hyponatremia, clogged tube, leakage of gastric contents, bleeding around stoma, infection of stoma and granulation tissue.
- Tube Feeding Transition Plateaus- Reprint of Exceptional Parent Magazine's article on Mealtime Notions' website provides information about understanding the transition plateaus and the reasons children spend time on them can help professionals support parents and children in the process.
Infant Feeding Issues - CEARP Video
Infant Feeding Issues video by Robin P. Glass, MS, OTR, IBCLC Occupational Therapy Care Team at Seattle Children's covers:
- Deciding about a baby’s feeding plan (timing, methods, liquids to use, length of feeding)
- Using infant cues to support feeding
- Coordination of sucking, swallowing and breathing
- Helping mothers with milk supply
- Good breastfeeding technique with tips on proper positioning In each area, Robin gives a “take to the beside” message with tips and information ideas on how to use the information.
View Outreach Nursing Grand Rounds the first Thursday of the month, 12-1pm from your computer.
Feeding the Child with Cleft Palate
A series of videos from the Cleft Palate Foundation guide parents and caregivers through special techniques and bottles used in feeding an infant with cleft palate. Topics include: getting started, adapting the bottle, how to use a Haberman and the Pigeon bottle, questions about breastfeeding and parent support. Includes demonstrations of a variety of bottles by families.
Feeding Issues in Children with ASD
- Mealtime Challenges and the Autism Spectrum: Written by an OTR/L for families who have mealtime challenges. Provides tips for providing multiple food exposures, trying new foods, skill building and sensory issues.
- Addressing Feeding Disorders in Children on the Autism Spectrum in School-Based Settings: Physiological and Behavioral Issues. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools Vol.39 261-272 April 2008. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2008/025)
Nutrition Management of Children with Rett Syndrome
- Nutrition for Children with Rett Syndrome: From the Nutrition Focus newsletter at the Center on Human Development and Disability, University of Washington.
Nutrition Interventions for Children with Special Health Care Needs
This book addresses the complex needs related to growth, nutrition and feeding in this varied population. Includes easy to follow tables containing assessment guidelines, intervention strategies and evaluation/outcome parameters. Nutrition Interventions for Children with Special Health Care Needs, 3rd edition. Yang Y, Lucas B, Feucht S, editors. Washington State Department of Health, Olympia, WA. April 2010. Available for order or as a pdf.
Produced by the Center for Children with Special Needs, a program of Seattle Children’s with support from the Washington State Department of Health, Children with Special Health Care Needs Program.
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