Sweet Pea’s therapy evaluation was yesterday.

She definitely has a “food aversion” to certain food groups: mainly veggies and proteins which means she is not eating a balanced diet.

Pulling into the parking garage for her assessment yesterday I had a “here we go again” mentality since this is our third therapy referral between both girls.

The facility is excellent. They gave us exercises to do with Little Bug to fix her tight muscle tone at birth and then they helped us strengthen Little Bug’s tongue muscles so she would learn to move her food to the side of her mouth to chew and swallow instead of gag and vomit when eating.

So I knew walking in we were in good hands.

The therapist asked for a detailed overview of Sweet Pea’s health and feedings from birth. I started by telling her that Sweet Pea was adopted and her birth mother was on methadone for most of her pregnancy with Sweet Pea. I said she went through withdrawals upon birth and from early on, we noticed she had a very sensitive stomach. I told about her first two months of life where she had reflux-like symptoms and would basically writhe in pain after many feedings and how I would hold her upright on my chest and that was her “comfort spot” until the “spell” was over. I told her history with the GI doctor; how he put her on Zantac and how that, along with all the other little tricks we discovered along the way, finally gave Sweet Pea some relief.

Then, the therapist wanted to watch Sweet Pea eat. I got out her baby food (squash) and started feeding her while the therapist just watched. She immediately told me that Sweet Pea is way ahead of the game in this because she will eat. The therapist told me she sees “drug babies” all the time and they simply will not eat.

Let me stop here and say that I do not see my babies as “drug babies”. Yes, technically, they were both born a “drug baby”. But I see that label as something they will overcome in their early formative years. It is not a life sentence that they will carry around with them for the rest of their life. And I don’t think anyone who knows my children would even think to think of them as “drug babies” because, besides these eating issues, there are no other signs that my girls grew and developed for 9 months in toxic wombs.

And, also, it did not offend me in the least bit that my daughter was referred to as a “drug baby” yesterday. For all intent and purposes, the therapist needed to think of Sweet Pea as a “drug baby” so that she could make an accurate assessment of her.

But right away – the therapist saw my baby was different from the other “drug babies” she has dealt with.

Next, she wanted to observe Sweet Pea eating something that is on her “I will eat this, no problem” list. So I pulled out some grapes and the therapist immediately saw that the mechanics of Sweet Pea eating is no problem. In other words, unlike Little Bug, Sweet Pea’s tongue and mouth muscles are not affected here because she could easily stick a grape in her mouth and move it to the side of her mouth to chew and swallow.

Then the therapist observed her with a food I knew Sweet Pea would turn her nose to – avocado. The therapist saw a negative reaction – crying and pulling away from the food. The therapist asked me to put a grape in the middle of the avocado juice that was on her tray. Even though she had just eaten grapes and loves grapes, she would not eat the grape with the juice on it and tossed it to the floor. We also talked about what has happened at home when we give Sweet Pea new foods to try.

The therapist told me that Sweet Pea definitely has a “food aversion” to certain foods. Her mouth is just extremely sensitive to new textures. She said there is a correlation of babies who have been exposed to drugs in the womb also having “gut issues” (such as reflux) and having “gut issues” can be correlated to also having “food aversion” problems. So there is a string of connections there that can possibly explain the “whys” behind Sweet Pea’s feeding issues, however, it is only a correlation and not an absolute since not every baby exposed to drugs in the womb has feeding issues.

I felt like I left with good and bad news after her eval appt. Bad news: it's not going to be a "quick fix" like Little Bug’s. The therapist said she will need the SOS (Sequential Oral Sensory) approach to therapy twice a week. For how long? It just depends on the progress Sweet Pea makes.

The good news is that Sweet Pea’s issues could be a lot worse, but they are not. The therapist made me feel very good as a mom today. I shared that I was worried this was because of something I did or didn't do with Sweet Pea to make her have these issues. She basically said that everything I have done as far as how I have fed her from birth (scheduling feeds & doing an eat/play/sleep routine from birth, ha, imagine that!!) has made Sweet Pea’s issues today be nowhere near as severe as they could be.

So now we wait for insurances processing (which will probably take 2 weeks) and then we will schedule Sweet Pea’s first therapy session.

- Elaine