Feeding Therapy

Charly choked on a piece of beef jerky today.  You might be thinking, "WHAT? Who in their right mind would give a baby beef jerky?"  Well, you're right.  Pretty much EVERYTHING that a "Normal" baby should NOT be doing...CHARLY IS DOING.

We have two specialists that work with Charly.  She NEVER learned how to eat from a bottle.  We stopped trying to teach her how to eat from one.  We have moved to solid foods since she passed her swallow study (found here).  I consider myself an opinionated, passionate mother...but I am following the therapists advice.  We have been trying to encourage Charly to become interested in eating by mouth.  Currently 100% of her nutrition comes from her g-tube.

So, we start by letting her "taste" what it is that we are eating.  We monitor her very carefully.  She has some "therapist approved" pretzels that she likes to suck on, but as soon as it breaks off...we throw it out.  She has a very unorganized swallow pattern, which makes her high risk for choking or aspiration.  Scary?  Yep!  I just about pee my pants when I have to feed her everyday (well, do feeding therapy anyway) because I get so anxious about something "bad" happening.

We have been encouraged to let her suck on things that will bring her hand to her mouth (like licorice, pickles, etc...etc).  She LOVES strong flavors.  She pretty much spits out anything bland.  She will take tastes of mashed potatoes...but only if they have gravy on them.  She won't eat applesauce to save her life, but she will lick pickles, and anything else we are eating with strong flavors.

Here she is taking tastes of bacon wrapped turkey.

She likes to hold her food, so we gave her a slice of an orange...and she LOVED IT.


We have also been introduced to the MUNCHKIN Fresh Food Feeder (Thanks Susie).  We can pretty much put whatever it is that we are eating inside the mesh bag, and then she goes to town on eating what is inside.  So far...so good.

Going back to today's episode... John was just walking out the door for work.  I had just given her a piece of Teryaki beef jerky (it's really dry and long so she shouldn't be able to bite through it...well, SHOULDN'T is the key here!). I literally turned my head for 2 seconds and she had clampdown and bit the beef jerky off (I still have NO IDEA how she did it. She doesn't even have teeth!).  When I looked back at her she had a panic look on her face, she then started to choke.  She was sitting in her swing (as instructed by the therapist...when we feed her as we don't have a high chair yet).  I grabbed her as quick as I could and gave her the baby Heimlich.  She coughed and gagged.  I stuck my finger in her mouth to get the piece out and I scratched the top of the roof of her mouth.  I got the piece of beef jerky, and then she threw up.

We don't see our feeding therapist again until July...so until then...I'm going to be a nervous wreck!  Charly is okay though.  I didn't need to take her into the ER because she got everything up, her oxygen saturation's look great, and other than the trauma from the episode...I'm hoping both her and I can learn from this, and move forward.  From now on...NO MORE JERKY!