Life with a Feeding Tube

Life with a Feeding Tube

Have you ever realized how important eating is for the necessary nutrition your body

needs? Well, not everyone has the ability to eat freely and get the right amount of nutrition by

mouth on their own. When this happens, feeding tubes can become a huge part of someone’s life

either temporarily or permanent depending on what problems they’re going through and the

severity of it. When it comes to feeding tubes there are a lot of factors that go into it including

what exactly a feeding tube is and the different types, why they need it, the procedure of getting

it, and how they use it.

Many people of different ages may need a feeding tube depending on where they’re at

health wise and the type of help they need. A feeding tube is a medical device used to provide

nutrition to people who cannot obtain enough to meet your body’s needs. There are also different

types of feeding tubes designed to help people with different problems which include nasal

tubes, Gastric tubes, Gastro-jejunal tubes, and jejunal tubes. Nasal tubes are non-surgical and

temporary. The nasal tubes are broken down into three separate types which include nasogastric,

nasoduodenal, and nasojejunal and to determine the choice depends on whether your child can

tolerate feeding into the stomach or not. Gastric tubes are the most common tubes used and are

surgically placed through the abdominal wall into the stomach. There are also multiple different

types of G-tubes, but any of them can be placed initially. Gastro-jejunal tubes is needed when

you need to bypass the stomach for feeding. They are placed inside the stomach just like G-

tubes, but inside the stomach there is also a thin, long tube threaded into the jejunal portion of the

small intestine. It’s sometimes necessary to place a separate jejunal tube that has a stoma (tube

site) directly to the intestine. This type of tube is not usually the initial feeding tube placement

for a child.

When thinking of why someone may need a feeding tube, there are a couple different

factors