Step #3: How I weaned my daughter off her feeding tube - SWALLOWING EXAM

Emanuela was seven months old when she first came home from the hospital. She was tolerating the pacifier in her mouth. She was sucking, but not swallowing. So, once at home, I started her feeding training from scratch.

I started with orofacial stimulation - massaging her face in a sequence of moves just before I gave her 1ml of water, through a syringe, one drop at the time. Most of the drops end up drooling down her chin.

After a few weeks, when I got more confident and she was doing something that resembled swallowing, I took a bottle dummy with the smallest hole, poured 1ml of milk in it and let Ema suck it out. I was so happy looking at how it all disappeared in a few gulps! But I was so afraid at the same time. In my head, we were one wrong sip away from aspiration and lung infection. Although she always coughed out everything that went down the wrong way and she never got ill from it, the fear was paralyzing.

What encouraged me was the video fluoroscopic swallowing exam (VFSE) that was done by PaedDr. Barbora Bunová in Skalica (Slovakia). Seeing how Ema sucked and swallowed the contrast liquid from inside her body was all I needed to be braver and adamant with our training at home.

Over time 1ml became 5ml and then 20ml... but eventually, we got stuck. It was time to rethink the strategy again.