On Thursday 23 May 2002 12:02 pm, Jamie Mahurin Smith wrote:

> 5) What's being done to find a cause for this problem?  Something is
> seriously wrong when a baby can't juggle maintaining an open airway
> and taking in nourishment.  Temporary fixes don't address the real
> issue.

I've been meaning to ask the same thing.  What sort of diagnostic workup
has been done on the baby to determine the cause of aspiration?  Any
sort of swallow studies?   Generally when you have a patient aspirating
(and my area of work is adult med/surg; I care for geriatric patients
who do aspirate) you either have a neurologic defecit that disrupts the
swallowing process or a structural defect or both.  But I agree that
something just isn't right for a seemingly healthy infant to be unable
to coordinate suckling/swallowing.  Generally a modified barium swallow
is the diagnostic study of choice for the adult population; chewing,
sipping, and swallowing are studied using different textures of solids
and liquids and radiologic films are taken throughout to evaluate where
the swallowed materials are going.  I do not know off hand how they'd go
about this type of study with an infant.... but they do need to
establish HOW the fluid is getting to the baby's lungs.

Has tracheoesophageal fistula been ruled out?  Generally that defect is
apparently shortly after birth but I don't imagine it would be
impossible one to have gone undiagnosed.

--
Elisa H. Casey
[log in to unmask]

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html