Why do you need to Thicken your Baby's Formula
Posted: Friday, January 29, 2010
by Clairessa Renken
Why would you need to thicken your baby's formula? As it is well known (because of the article I wrote called, "With all things said...Never Give Up"), my daughter was hospitalized at birth. One of the issues she has/had is trouble swallowing her formula at the normal/thin consistency. When she tried to drink her formula like a normal baby would, it would come back out of her mouth and be all over and she choked on it. Which can be very harmful. So we proceeded on under the care of the Doctors and nurses of the NIC unit (Neonatal Intensive Care). Then we were still left with a question (How do we get food into this baby?) The Doctor's and Nurses decided we try the technique of pacing her. For her it worked just long enough for an Occupational Therapist to see her.
About three months later I took my daughter back for a swallow study. A swallow study is a type of X-Ray. What they do with a swallow study is they put your baby in a car seat looking thing. Then they put on a thing that measures the oxygen of your baby. They then proceed with giving your baby some liquids out of a bottle. They may start with normal consistency or a nectar consistency. On the X-ray they can see if your baby is able to keep down his/her formula at the consistency they are giving the baby.
With my daughter they started with the nectar consistency. With the nectar they only saw formula come up the esophagus once. So they figured that is not so bad, lets try her on thin/normal liquid. Well she aspirated/it came up her esophagus like three different times. This can be harmful to a baby if they are having to much trouble swallowing and of course three times is way to many times. They were comfortable sending me home with the baby on the nectar consistency gel. There is a powder form called thicken up but it does not work well. The Simply Thick gel works the best for formula.
If your baby has to have thiner formula thickened the baby's physician will give an order so that you will be able to get the thickener. The physician is the only one that can make the order to the place where you will be getting the thickener, because they have to tell them how many packets you will need and for a certain amount of time. The physician that sent the order for my daughter sent us through Apria(a company that carries the thickener that you will need.
My daughter also has an Occupational Therapist through First Steps that comes to the house to see her every week to help make the process smoother for my daughter and I. The therapist helps me with any or all of my concerns that I am having with the feeding and also works with the baby on trying to get them eating there formula well and moving on up to regular food. Having this has been very beneficial to me.
My daughter is now seven months old and doing wonderful with her thickened formula. She may even be able to come off of thickened liquids soon. We will know if she can or not after a few months after another swallow study is done.
So in conclusion with this article I just wanted to hopefully answer any questions that you may have about the How to Thicken your Baby's Formula article that I wrote on January 22, 2010.
Here are some terms I used in the article that I wanted to go into greater detail explaining what they are:
Thickener
To make something thick...( Gel packets that make a consistency of Nectar, Honey, or Syrup)
Constancy
To make something the right thickness
Swallow Study/also know as an OPM
An X-Ray where a baby is evaluated to see if they can have a thin liquid or if it needs to be thickened.
Occupational Therapist
A therapist that helps with developmental delays, etc. so that the patient may exceed in there daily activities.
Physician
The person that makes educated decisions about your child
NIC Unit/ Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
A unit in a Children's hospital or some regular hospitals that are used only for newborns who have not had exposure to the environment. Babies are under 24 hour supervision from a team of docotor's and nurses in this unit.
If you still have a question feel free to ask me or I have some websites that might explain it in more detail for you. Here they are: http://www.medicinenet.com/swallowing/article.htm or www.simplythick.com
Clairessa Renken
SearchWarp.com
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