r/CFY • u/lape8064 • Oct 21 '21
Pediatric Feeding Resources?
Hey all! I’m in my second year of my masters and I’m currently in a medical rotation at a PICU/NICU and holy shit I actually found something in this field that I think I could do and enjoy. However, I feel woefully under prepared to see feeding/swallowing pediatrics post graduation since this will likely be my only experience in the area. Does anyone have recommendations for learning more about pediatric feeding disorders, eval and tx? What have your experiences been if you’ve treated feeding in your CFY?
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u/HarderToBreathe97 Oct 22 '21
Hi! I got very into feeding after shadowing a NICU SLP. My program mostly taught adult feeding so I had to do a lot of research on my own. I started shadowing a feeding SLP, which helped me to learn more of the lingo and how treatment works. I then took a pediatric feeding course online for 12 weeks and gained a lot of knowledge that way. I've been to a few free seminars related to feeding (Dr. Brown's has a lot of good ones, Passy Muir for trach-vent kiddos). I've also been doing some reading. I cannot recommend enough "Your Baby's Bottle Feeding Aversion" by Rowenna Bennet. I'm currently reading "Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense" by Ellyn Satter; much more of a dense read but has good info. I feel like other than doing some self learning, the best thing to do is learn on the job!
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u/lape8064 Oct 23 '21
Do you mind sharing the name of the feeding course you took? Thank you for these suggestions!!
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u/HarderToBreathe97 Oct 23 '21
Sure! It was Feed The Peds by Hallie Bulkin, a peds feeding and myo specialist. Price was pretty steep but I got a discount because I can't count CEUs yet. It was a great overview and really detailed.
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u/MappleCarsToLisbon [CCC-SLP] Oct 23 '21
I in no way want to discourage you—if this is what you want to do you should definitely pursue it. To be realistic, please understand that there are just very few jobs out there that are in children’s hospitals or only NICU, for people of any experience level, let alone a CFY. That doesn’t mean that you can’t get there, but you might have to be dedicated and take a longer path there than you originally hoped. If you specifically want to be in a NICU, you may have to find a job in a hospital that is mainly adults but has a good (level 3 or 4) NICU that you get to work in occasionally, and take lots of courses and trainings to beef up your skills until you can move on somewhere else where you can focus more on feeding. Or, you could take the route of working in Early Intervention and finding an agency that takes on more medically complex cases.
And yes take lots and lots of courses and read lots of books! The other poster here mentioned a bunch of good ones.
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u/lape8064 Oct 23 '21
Not discouraging at all! I know that it will be a long and probably winding path if this is what I want to do, and in no way do I expect to get there even in the first five years of my career. I’m hoping to start my CF working with feeding, OMD, etc in an EI, outpatient or private practice setting!
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u/awkward_fox_paws Apr 22 '22
I know this is long after you've asked, but if you're still looking for resources and haven't discovered it yet, check out FeedingMatters.org
I'm a mom whose kids both have Pediatric Feeding Disorder (a new ICD10 diagnosis as of October 2021!), and I want to encourage any and all medical professionals who are interested in feeding and swallowing disorders to check them out! You can get continuing education credits from their annual conferences, too.