Naren was born at 30 Weeks 4 days gestation weighing 2 lb 5 oz (IUGR and very low weight) and 14 inches. His twin sister was born weighing 3 lbs. He was in the hospital for 9 weeks and was on oxygen for around 5 weeks. He was difficult to feed but came home drinking breast milk fortified with formula. However, the feeding difficulties remained and as time progressed he would not even take the nipple into his mouth. He was in feeding therapy and we had multiple appointments with doctors to find any issues. We found no answers and eventually Naren started losing weight. At around 6 months of age Naren had a g-tube placed since he was losing weight.
From the parents
My son Naren has been tube free since 5/5/2015. We started our wean on 4/17/2015. He was 16 months old then. Naren is doing great! His weight is stable – he is yet to show any weight gain but he eats really well. Our over all quality of life has improved dramatically – no vomitings or granulomas to deal with (Naren’s tube came out last week when his sister pulled it out). He used to go to a special pediatric daycare since the regular daycares did not want him. But we were kicked of the special daycare since he did not have any medical diagnosis for his tube. He now goes fulltime to a regular daycare. He can drink from a sippy cup and a straw cup and he eats most foods – he is not into drinking milk or pediasure. None of the therapies (I used to take him for occupational and speech therapy once a week) worked. NoTube team is just awesome. They know what they are doing and we think this was the best decision we made for our son! His verbal skills have developed exponentially since we started his wean. While he had no words (just some noises) before his wean – he now says Mommy, Okay, NO, Hello, Hi and EAT!!!