Blythedale is has a staff of more than 25 highly trained Speech-Language Pathologists. These therapists are passionate about...
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.
FEES Studies Done On Site
Blythedale has the expertise to perform fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) to assess swallowing function in infants and children.
Ocean and Rio Get a Taste of the Good Life
Ocean and Rio were born at just 23-weeks gestation and, as a result of their extreme prematurity, developed chronic lung disease. The twins had other complications, including a mass in Rio's airway that blocked his ability to speak or swallow, and Ocean had a perforated intestine that would require...
Specialized Feeding Team
This team, composed of Pediatricians, Neonatologists, Pediatric Feeding Therapists, Psychologists, Rehabilitation Nurses and Dietitians, works collaboratively with each child and family to provide a comprehensive treatment plan.
Assistant Director of Speech Pathology/Assistive Technology Professional
Milana's Story
Three-year-old Milana has attended Blythedale's Specialized Feeding outpatient program for more than a year now. As a medically complex child, finding all the therapies Milana required - in one location - was difficult for her mom, Deanna. Milana was born with Pierre Robin Sequence, a rare...
