Swallow Study

Eleanor had her swallow study done on Friday afternoon.  Of course, she didn't choke once the whole time we were there!  The speech pathologist put some really thin barium in her bottle and had her start with that.  While Eleanor was drinking it they had her lay sideways on the table and they watched on the x-ray machine as the liquid went down.  They didn't see any problems with any of the parts or how things were working.  They said everything looked great!  That only took a couple minutes.  Then we put some actual formula in Eleanor's bottle and the speech pathologist had me feed her like normal.  Again, no choking.  Again, everything looked fantastic and she didn't see anything concerning.  Through all of this we were using a regular bottle and nipple, not the Haber.man feeder that we've been using.  The speech pathologist said that she doesn't see any reason for us not to continue using the regular nipple.  This is nice because feeding should take a more normal time frame rather than the 30-60 minutes it takes with the Haber.man.  Also, we only have one Haber.man but lots of regular nipples so this means we don't have to wash it out after every feeding!

On one hand, we are so glad that everything looked good!  But on the other hand, we wish we knew why Eleanor is choking when she eats.  The speech pathologist did show us some differnt positions that we can hold Eleanor in while we're feeding her to try to help with the choking.  So right now we are starting each feeding with Eleanor on her side.  This way the formula falls in her cheek first rather than straight back into her throat.  This does seems to be helping.

We'll keep an eye on things and hopefully they get better as Eleanor continues to grow.  The speech pathologist seemed to think this would be the case.