Play Picnics – minimising the unwanted side effect of tube dependency.
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Presenter: Mrs Christine Thomas1
1Women’s And Children’s Health Network, Adelaide, Australia
Date of presentation: 27th October 2016
Abstract
Aim
Children may require enteral feeding in the management of a wide range of medical conditions. There is a risk the child may become tube dependent once the underlying condition has stabilised or resolved, impairing the process of weaning to oral feeds. Inadequate understanding of hunger, poor oral skills, parental anxieties and a history of traumatic interventions may contribute. To minimise this, a new therapeutic intervention has been introduced – ‘Play Picnics’. Access to this type of intervention requires a commitment from families to attend regularly.
Method
The aim of the picnics is to restore the child’s autonomy around feeding, improve acceptance of food as a safe and pleasurable experience, to address and begin to unravel the parent / child interactions that may be causing barriers to the process and to begin restoration of a healthy relationship with eating.
Results
Children and their main caregiver attend the picnics twice a week for 4 weeks. Children are given the opportunity to interact with food in a ‘picnic’ setting. Children who have attended and their main caregiver have been assessed using validated screening tools before group commencement and at completion. Each caregiver also completed a questionnaire on expectations.
Conclusions
There has been a statistically significant improvement in children’s feeding problems indicating change was practically and clinically meaningful. A reduction in parental distress and difficult child scales was demonstrated. The principles behind these picnics can be translated to other settings, giving more children the opportunity to transition more seamlessly from tube to oral feeding.