Feeding Care Plan
A feeding care plan requires consideration of many factors that precede, occur during, and follow the actual act of eating, feeding, and swallowing. Having a clearly defined feeding care plan is an important part of safely managing pediatric feeding disorder (PFD). It is an essential part of communicating, and implementing safe and successful strategies across multiple care settings, e.g. grandparents, daycare, and school. A feeding care plan is also a useful means for documenting interventions that may also require extra caution and attention, e.g. related to aspiration risk, allergies.
Consider addressing the following components in the child’s feeding care plan:
- child and family information, e.g. DOB, age, medical condition
- emergency contacts
- medications and equipment, e.g. wheelchair
- precautions, including emergency procedures, e.g. identification of personnel with training in abdominal thrusts
- diet and nutrition prescription, e.g. food, fluids, quantity and texture, enteral feeds
- description of child’s feeding abilities and difficulties
- techniques that support safe and adequate intake
- supports needed to promote safe independence, e.g. equipment and method of delivery for fluid, food, and enteral feeding preparation and administration
- positioning during feeding
- environment in which the child can be safely fed
- sensory preferences that may support the child’s regulation
- resources to support staff training for personnel implementing the plan, e.g. attach an AHS resource that may offer additional information
- plan for evaluating the feeding care plan safety, progress and effectiveness and revising it accordingly
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