Surgically Acquired Vocal Cord Palsy in Infants and Children with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD): Description of Feeding Outcomes

Prevalence and Risk Factors for Tube-Feeding at Discharge in Infants following Early Congenital Heart Disease Surgery: A Single-Center Cohort Study

“…13,27 Infants with additional genetic diagnosis are considered as higher risk, like our study findings. 13,28,29 About 30% CHD have associated genetic diagnosis, similar to our study (38/128 ¼ 29.7%). 30,31 Some studies that looked at TF risk in neonates undergoing CHD surgery have observed 100% risk with a genetic syndrome (vs. <20% risk with no genetic syndrome).…”

“…14,28 Variability of postsurgery complications such as vocal fold paralysis and vocal fold mobility impairment secondary to recurrent laryngeal nerve injury may be contributing this discrepancy. 25,28,29,39,40 A study that assessed the swallowing dysfunction using Modified…”

What are the needs and challenges of breastfed medically complex infants and children in the paediatric setting?

“…In a recent study most of the mothers of children with surgically acquired vocal cord palsy following surgery for congenital heart conditions had long-term feeding problems. They commented that more support from lactation consultants and speech and language therapists would have helped them to manage their child's feeding condition and reduce their stress levels (Pettigrew et al, 2022).…”

“…This is important because firstly it suggests that they were perhaps not as experienced as they initially claimed to be, and secondly, by not referring mothers to more appropriate sources of support if they were not able to help them, they were missing an opportunity to reduce their workload. Many mothers report that they would like services to be more joined up (Brown, 2016), and this has been found among mothers of medically complex children as well (Lewis and Kritzinger, 2004;Pettigrew et al, 2022). However, this is poorly researched.…”

“…This nuanced training could then be delivered to health professionals in paediatrics and similar pre and post-test scores collected, to be run in conjunction with auditing the impact this has on family experiences and breastfeeding outcomes. This multi-disciplinary approach is also likely to improve inter-professional working and collaboration as well as lead to better outcomes for families (Pettigrew et al, 2022). A similar exercise could be conducted to establish what bridging training nonclinical lactation advocates require to equip them to work safely with medically complex breastfed children.…”