had to use the industrial pump at the Hospi- tal because I was overproducing milk and he wasn’t even feeding,” Kimberly explains. “He was so tiny and everything we thought we were doing right wasn’t good enough. He was born at 5 pounds, 2 ounces but was down to 4 pounds, 8 ounces because he just couldn’t eat.” Sage left the hospital in June, but still had a lot of work ahead of him. “We went to occupational therapy three or four times per week, but we continued to not make headway feeding. He was still having issues with feeding and breathing, and I was sleep- ing with my hand on his chest to make sure he didn’t stop breathing,” she says. “Thinking back on it now, I didn’t really know how bad it was until now I see him healthy.” She also didn’t realize how much other doctors were pushing for Sage to have a nasal feeding tube, while Dr. Brigger’s team was teaching the family how to feed without it.
LEFT: Sage was shredding just shy of
his third birthday
LIFE AND BREATH
Disorders and Airway Surgery at Rady Children’s comes into play. Consisting of a multidisciplinary team of health care experts from otolaryngology (ENT), pulmonary/respiratory medicine, gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition, speech-language pathology and occupational therapy, the center specializes in the evaluation, treatment and management of complex airway
kids out there and find a way as a multidisciplinary group to provide comprehensive care that spans the breadth of their problems and to coordinate the best care possible,” explains Dr. Brigger, whose passion for airway problems was born out of his own childhood esophageal issue as well as his son’s bout with esophagitis. A nationally recognized expert in his subspeciality, Dr. Brigger was hired at Rady Children’s to create this multidisciplinary program. “The big aha moment for the need for this program was seeing that so many kids were being bounced around from specialty to specialty because they had a set of problems that could not be addressed by one subspecialty. For example, they have asthma that results from a congenital
Think about two functions you need to survive. What comes to mind? Breathing and eating likely top the list—and they’re likely things you can’t recall learning how to do. They’re functions we take for granted, like our heart beating or our eyes blinking. However, for children born with congenital birth defects or conditions that affect the airway, breathing and feeding may not come naturally. In fact, they may require surgery, education and therapy to perform properly. That’s where the Center for Pediatric Aerodigestive
and esophageal disorders. Led by Matthew Brigger, MD, chief of the Division of
Otolaryngology at Rady Children’s and a professor of surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine, the center launched in 2017 to serve the growing needs of children with multifactorial issues that impact their breathing and eating. “Our goal is to take these kids that are the most complex
18 HEALTHY KIDS MAGAZINE SUMMER 2023
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