Oral Aversion vs. Oral Addiction

Oral Aversion: Reluctance or refusal to feed or eat. A familiar example of oral aversion is a baby's refusal to breastfeed. Prolonged intravenous or nasogastric feeding may also contribute to the development of oral aversion.

Oral Addiction: Love of food; usually associated with unwanted weight gain. Comes with marrying into a family of good cooks.


Isn't it funny how we are all born with our own sets of problems? Nathan & I have exactly opposite feeding issues. He can't seem to get anything in his mouth and down his throat and I can't seem to keep my favorite foods out! Here is a link that talks about Nathan's feeding problems. He is also going to be seen by a dysphasia clinic as well.

http://www.choa.org/default.aspx?id=4434

Nathan's weight gain has been extremely slow. He is in the 20th percentile for his height and weight and the 17th percentile for his head. A good portion of his weight is sitting in those chubby, lovable cheeks! Even though he is being fed through his g-tube, we just can't seem to get him to gain the weight that he needs for his open heart surgery. He is on a higher concentrate formula that is 27 calories per ounce. Breast milk and regular formula are 20 calories an ounce. His poor little tummy is not handling the higher caloric content and so the GI surgeon is having us back down to 24 calories per ounce. The problem with that is that heart babies burn calories so much more quickly than other babies so they need the higher calories to pack on the pounds. Elisabeth and Nathan are just so different in terms of their size!

I, on the other hand, have joined Weight Watchers in an effort to lose all of this excess baby weight. So far I've lost 6 1/2 pounds! Jake and I have been very careful at what we are cooking so that I'm staying within my allotted points budget. Its actually been going great these last two weeks! I'll keep posting as to my success in the future.

Hopefully our family can reach a happy oral medium!