Implementing FEES for Infants in CVICU & NICU

[Dr. Gopi Shah]
That's great. Just to set the clinical stage, how do infants with feeding difficulties usually present to you in the hospital? You can, if you want, divide it by, the NICU babies usually present this way because they're so different from the CVICU babies. Then, of course, the PICU babies.

[Olivia Brooks, SLP]
They are very different, and it depends on where they're at from a developmental stage as well. Our very young premature babies, 32-33 weeks, they're just having those emerging skills and feeding cues. We're working on strengthening their oral motor functions and providing good positive experiences for them with feeding. A lot of my work revolves around positioning them for feeding well and handling flow rates and helping moms breastfeed. They're typically a little bit slower to feed. They might take a little bit longer. We have a level four NICU, so we see very sick infants as well, babies with tracheostomies, babies that have had prolonged NPO because they've had to be on high levels of respiratory support or they've had GI infections and intolerance. From an ENT perspective, we have your typical noisy breathers. A lot of premature babies sort of have that elongated face. They'll have high, narrow palates. They can be born with all sorts of congenital anomalies as well. We see choanal atresia, pretty severe laryngomalacia from time to time will come up. If they've been intubated, we will see intubation injuries, airway edema, things like that.