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Specialized Feeding

As the only pediatric specialty hospital in New York State, Blythedale Children’s Hospital has the ability to evaluate and treat complex feeding difficulties in children with a team of pediatric specialists who work exclusively with medically fragile children.

Why Blythedale...

Blythedale has extensive experience in enteral feeding, weaning infants and children from supplemental tube feeding (naso-gastric, gastrostomy, and jejunostomy), and decreasing dependence on tube feedings.

  • Inpatient
  • Long Term Care
  • Outpatient
  • Day Hospital

Children referred to Blythedale for Therapeutic Feeding have wide-ranging conditions including prematurity, short-gut syndrome, brain injury, oral-motor dysfunction, aversion behaviors, cognitive deficits or post-surgical complications. 

Services for these children include evaluations for both inpatients and outpatients and individualized therapy programs. Blythedale also has a specialized preschool developmental program and school-age program for children who can eat but don't due to a variety of causes.

Blythedale’s multidisciplinary approach not only incorporates each child’s complex medical and developmental needs, but also addresses behavioral and oral-motor feeding issues, in order to customize a nutritional plan to maximize growth and development.

 

 

A Different Daniel

A Different Daniel

Slow and steady wins the race. A mantra that Blythedale Children’s Hospital patient, Daniel, his family and medical/clinical teams have lived by for the past few years. Since his birth four years ago, eating has been an obstacle for Daniel. He was initially breastfed, but had difficulty...

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Specialized Feeding Team

This team, composed of Pediatricians, Neonatologists, Pediatric Feeding Therapists, Psychologists, Rehabilitation Nurses and Dieticians, works collaboratively with each child and family to provide a comprehensive treatment plan.

Dennis Davidson, Unit Chief, Infant & Toddler Unit/Neonatology
Dennis Davidson, M.D.
Unit Chief, Infant & Toddler Unit/Neonatology
Rita Erlbaum Kotorac,C.C.C.-S.L.P., Director of Speech Pathology and Audiology
Rita Erlbaum Kotorac, C.C.C.-S.L.P.
Director of Speech Pathology and Audiology
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Behind the Scenes: Intensive Feeding Classroom

Behind the Scenes: Intensive Feeding Classroom

Here's a behind the scenes look at Blythedale Children's Hospital's intensive feeding classroom where therapists work to promote developmentally appropriate skills for our pediatric patients.

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