Feeding clinics assess and treat babies and children with eating, drinking and swallowing difficulties.
For some children, these difficulties may be linked to ‘faltering growth’. This means that these children are not growing at the rate you would normally expect compared with others of the same age.
We run three specialist clinics:
- videofluoroscopy clinic – to assess how safely a child is swallowing using an x-ray
- medical feeding clinic – to see children with complex medical conditions, physical disabilities and delayed feeding skills
- behavioural feeding clinic – to see children with developmental and behavioural issues around feeding.
Clinics are run by a multidisciplinary team - a range of different professionals working together to assess and treat each child. The specialist team includes:
- speech and language therapists, who specialise in eating and drinking difficulties
- dietitians
- neurodisability specialists
- paediatric neurologists
- occupational therapists, and
- psychologists.
We also work with other specialists, for example respiratory and gastroenterology teams, depending on an individual patient’s needs.
We are a regional service and the hospital team works closely with professionals in the community to assess and offer advice on managing complex feeding difficulties.