Background: Infants and children, who temporarily use feeding tubes to maintain body composition and growth, often have difficulty resuming oral feeds once medically stable. We report survey results from Growing Independent Eaters (GIE), an interdisciplinary approach providing home-based virtual support during a child-led appetite-guided enteral wean.
Method: Surveys addressing participant wean success, weight, and feeding practices were sent to 76 families who participated in a GIE-led wean; 31 surveys were completed and returned.
Results: All participants who were not eating or drinking orally prewean were fully or partially weaned off enteral support. Infants weaned faster (37.7 days) than children (80.1 days). Mean weight loss during the intervention was 6.6% for infants and 5.9% for children. Six months postwean, 93% of participants surpassed their prewean weight.
Conclusion: The GIE method was successful for weaning infants and children off enteral support.
Keywords: enteral nutrition; home nutrition support; nutrition support teams; outcomes research/quality; pediatrics; weight loss.
© 2022 American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.