Adventures in G-Tube Feeding

Over the last few years we have embarked on a journey into the world of tube feeding. Since Ezra cannot swallow yet, we decided to get him a g-tube. This is a small device that is put directly into the stomach and sits on top of the skin. We have special tubes that fit into the device (button) to give Ezra his food. He was first on infant formula, then around six months we gave him a homemade formula. This worked great for him. Ezra got chunky, his eczema cleared up, and he looked healthy. The new formula was time consuming for Micah and myself, but the benefits outweighed all that! This last spring, however, we hit a problem with the homemade formula. Ezra got kidney stones!! After a few trips to the nephrologist, we decided the diet was to blame for the stones.

So now we were left with the decision of what to do next. Micah and I decided to keep Ezra's diet natural. We did some research and came up with a few recipes to give him. We wanted to keep his diet as close to a "normal" toddler diet as possible. After some trial and error (like discovering Ezra had many food allergies), we thought we had successfully transitioned to the new diet. At our last nephrologist visit, we discovered Ezra was losing weight. Great.......back to the drawing board!!!

This week we began some new diet ideas. Ezra needs more calories and protein according to his doctor. We also give him lots of good fats to help his brain development. So far things seem to be going well. I'm sure I'll be writing about this topic much more in the future.

This is a picture of a g-tube with the feeding tube attached for those of you curious as to what the tube looked like.