Personalized Care After Heart Surgery
Many babies with congenital heart conditions struggle to take in all the food by mouth that they need to grow and develop. A nasogastric (NG) or gastric (GT) feeding tube ensures your child gets the calories and nutrients they need to be healthy and strong. Although these tools may be necessary at times for nutrition and hydration, our goal is to meet the child where they are and improve oral intake.
The Cardiology Feeding Tube Wean Clinic at Cincinnati Children’s provides a personalized program for your child. We offer care in-person and virtually through telehealth. When your baby is ready to wean off their feeding tube after heart surgery, our experts create a plan tailored to your child’s age, diet and skills.
Your child’s safety is our priority. Our team of doctors and therapists helps your child develop physical coordination and swallow skills to eat and drink by mouth. When the time is right, we work together to remove the feeding tube.
Benefits of Our Team Approach
We use a team approach to provide advanced tube weaning care for your child. Our specialists are experts in cardiology, nursing, nutrition, physical therapy, speech therapy and swallow therapy. We are licensed to provide telehealth care for patients in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.
Our robust telehealth system allows you to complete the tube weaning process from home with assistance and support from your care team.
Weaning from Home
Support and telehealth technology provide advantages while tube weaning from home, such as:
- Your child remains in a comfortable environment.
- We watch and observe your child interact and eat at home through virtual visits.
- We provide tips to help you and your child be successful at tube weaning.
- We recommend certain bottles, sippy cups and spoons to help your child drink and eat by mouth.
Remote Patient Monitoring Provides Extra Support
Our Tube Wean Clinic partners with the Remote Patient Monitoring Program at Cincinnati Children’s to make it easier for you to complete tube weaning at home. When you use remote patient monitoring you receive a scale, training and 24/7 access to supportive care.
The program uses an app that allows you and your child’s tube wean care team to communicate and document your child’s daily progress. The app tracks all necessary data, such as your child’s weight, consumption and voiding.
Support from Parent Advocates
We understand that tube weaning your child can be overwhelming and stressful. We want you to know that you are not alone. We connect you with other parents who successfully completed tube weaning their own child.
Our parent advocate provides support, listens to your concerns and shares insight with you.
What Our Families Say
Read about one parent’s experience with our tube wean clinic:
“I want you to know how truly grateful I am that you have invested your time in my son and have given him this opportunity. As a mom, you just want what’s best for your child and to give them every chance to succeed. I know he is challenging, but I do believe he will eat on his own! Thank you for believing in him and not giving up! Thank you for being interested in his future and wanting him to be successful! Thank you for being on this journey with us. I am forever thankful for each of you for all you have done for our family.”
Meet the Team
Click then scroll to meet our cardiology feeding tube wean specialists.
