PreChaining: Alex's Story

From Jessica:
Alex was on TPN for the first three weeks of his life, after his malrotation surgery the doctors let him have 5cc's in his tummy, I believe it took him 30 minutes to take these 5cc. I figured he wasn't able to eat right after he was born so he would need some practice. Everyday after that first meal they went up about 10cc's per day, finally we were way over our heads in what he could take by mouth. He then had an NG tube placed. When we left the NICU he was taking 20 to 30 cc's by mouth, and about 50 was then put down the NG tube. I kept working with Alex at home, and got him to average around 40 cc's. One time he took 80, and sometimes could do 60. He was referred to Cheri and had a swallow study that day. One month to the day we were hospitalized with pneumonia, Alex did a swallow study and it showed that he was silently aspirating on thin and thickened milk. I had been drowning him all that time.
The Tuesday after we came home from the hospital we went to see Cheri, and Alex has belonged to her ever since. He still does not take any liquid by mouth, he has learned to suck and take tastes by a dipped pacifier and we have been tasting foods, and he is doing very well with the stage one baby food.

I hope to post more accomplishments as they happen, but this is where we are at now.

Cheri: Alex has a PreChaining program in place. The second swallow study will be done soon. He is at a level of therapeutic tastes and on a pacifier program to improve oral stage skills. He is beautiful as you can see from his photo and he has my heart.