“Heart Surgery Recovery”

My daughter was born in May with two major birth defects. One of which is a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot, and required open heart surgery when she was 11 weeks old. During recovery, she developed a feeding issue and would not take a bottle or the breast. When we were discharged, we came home with a NG tube and pump equipment, and a good luck from the hospital staff. She progressed very well for a while, then began regressing. I pushed her doctors for speech and occupational therapy. The speech pathologist first did a barium swallow study to check her swallow. She was aspirating a bit, but thankfully coughs when she does. We were given instructions on thickening her bottle and what type of nipple to use. At her follow up about 2 weeks later, there wasn’t much change to report. The pathologist clearly has a dislike for the type of bottles we were using, stating babies tend to aspirate a lot with those bottles. She recommended the Dr. Brown’s bottle and gave us one to try at home. After just 2 full days with the new bottle, Luna was taking 75-80% of her volume by mouth, where before she was only taking 15-20% by mouth. Your bottles had been recommended by other moms, but I felt like we were on the right track, and didn’t want to rush out and buy all new bottles…again. But, your bottles have given us the hope we needed that our little girl will be off the tube very soon. Over the Christmas holiday, she ate very well, and we didn’t use the tube for several days. She has had her tube since August, and has had something taped to her face her whole life. I do not have enough words to express how happy seeing her finish her bottles makes me. We are a Dr. Brown’s family from now on. Thank You!