Care involving technical procedures
The care of some infants with disabilities involves the use of technical procedures such that the attention or supervision/watching-over required from birth may be greatly in excess of that required by a healthy infant. These include -:
- Infants requiring regular mechanical suction because they have a tracheostomy (an opening made through the neck into the trachea to aid breathing) or other upper airway problem.
- Infants being fed by tube into the stomach or a vein.
- Infants who regularly need oxygen in order to survive. These include infants with broncho-pulmonary dysplasia (impairment of normal lung development and impaired lung function) as a result of very premature birth.
- Infants with one of the following surgical procedures whereby a segment of the stomach or bowel is opened up onto the abdominal wall for feeding or for the elimination of waste: gastrostomy (the stomach has an opening onto the abdominal wall to assist in feeding by tube); ileostomy; jejunostomy; colostomy (all these are connections between a particular part of the bowel and the abdominal wall. They are usually constructed to form an exit from the intestine when part of it is blocked or has been destroyed by disease).
- Infants with a nephrostomy (a connection between the urinary tract and the abdominal wall, constructed to form an exit for the passage of urine).
