toobie woobie « Struggling to Thrive

It’s a common question. “My child has a surgically placed feeding tube. Can they go in the water?” To answer there’s some context required so it’s best to consult with your physician. This is especially true if the tube site is less than 6 months old. Assuming the tube site has completely healed from the surgery and the stoma is well established, the rest of the post applies to you.

If your child gets in the water and the water goes through his stoma it lands in his stomach which is the exact same place it would end up with any other child. There are plenty of places where swimming is simply a bad idea. Lakes can grow many different types of bacteria which can make you sick. If you’ve been swimming in a lake your whole life you’ve probably already been exposed to whatever is in it and it’s unlikely you’ll get sick. A child who has never swum there before might get very sick from that same bacteria.

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There are a lot of kids who vomit in the car and it’s mostly an annoyance. For our son with Noonan’s Syndrome every bit of food counts. He has difficulty gaining weight under normal circumstances and getting car sick makes it that much worse. If you find yourself thinking, “It’s not that big of a deal,” please remember it is a big deal for our son.

One of the first things we were told to do with our son to soothe him was to toss him in a car seat and drive him around. Our first pediatrician even recommended sleeping in a car seat as a way to lessen the discomfort of his reflux. We did try these things before writing them off but they weren’t helpful for us. The angle of the car seat seemed to guarantee our son would puke all over himself, in the car or out of it.

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