Anyone familiar with aspiration and nursing?

[Anonymous]

My 9 week old is breastfed and has reflux. He has some wheezing at times so they sent him for a swallowing test. It showed that he aspirated on one of his gulps. He has been thriving and gaining well and is happy; however, they are telling me I need to thicken his feedings which means an end to the nursing. I am getting conflicting advice and have been told by some that the little bit of breast milk will not hurt. Anyone know?

[Anonymous]

Colette,

I had the same situation. Kate never wheezed while bf but her G.I wanted us to cover all our bases so she had a three stage swallow which showed slight aspiration. Aspiration is nothing to take lightly but for Kate, we tried thickening feeds for awhile(pumping thickening with Simply Thick))and she struggled more. Her aspiration is ever so slight and I’m fortunate enough to keep nursing but I would try thickening your feeds to see if that stops the wheezing in your lo. From what I understand, untreated aspiration that’s severe enough can cause scarring of the lungs,pneumonia etcc.. Not to scare you!!! That being said(big sigh),I e-mailed Dr.Jack Newman a big bf guru out of Toronto and his advice to me(granted it was just e-mail)was to keep bf and not thicken. He said that if babies are aspirating on bm, it’s way better then formula b/c bm is not a foreign body and contains anti-innflammatory)sp?) enzymes in it.

Whew! Are you still with me? I agree that everyone has something different to say about aspiration. For us, we tried the thickening at the advice of our docs and it didn’t do anything but like I said, Kate never was a wheezer. I would try it if I were you just to see. Couldn’t hurt!!! Good luck, I know you’ll make the right decision for your lo. Every baby is different!!!

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