Natalie has been having so many issues with gagging and throwing up her feedings, I wanted to find out if there was something physical going on. To put my mind at ease, the doctor scheduled Natalie for a swallow study at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. We got there early one morning, on an empty stomach and proceeded with the swallow study. It was really painless. I was expecting more. They basically put her in a chair and put her in an xray of sorts. The gave her food with this marshmallow cream like substance that shows up in the xrays. First, I gave her a bottle and right away, the therapist saw it. I don't know the techinical terms, but basicaly, Natalie has a little pocket at the top of her throat. If she tilts her head back, it opens the pocket even more, so the liquid goes in the pocket. With the feeding from a spoon, it was has pronounced. They said we would be a good candidate for a feeding evaluation if we wanted to, so they scheduled it for us.
A few weeks later we went back to VCH and had a 2 hour session with a speech therapist. They gave her different textures and cups to see how she reacted to things. They did say that at 1 year old, that Natalie was a little delayed developmentatlly and was more like a 6-9 month old. (see I knew I wasn't crazy) That suggested we buy some different tools like a honey bear straw cup to help get her off a bottle. Sippy cups would require her to tilt her head back to drink until she learned the motor skill of flipping her wrists. I was really proud of Natalie and I have seen so much improvement just in the past month.
waiting for her evaluation to begin
playing in the room
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