A mother who knows all too well the struggle when a child is not eating correctly has wholeheartedly welcomed a multi-disciplinary feeding clinic.
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Rebecca Parker's son, George, was struggling to transition to solids.
"He had horrible reflux," she said. "We could not get past the fine puree stage, so he was gagging."
After seeing the doctor, Mrs Parker was referred to see a speech pathologist, an occupational therapist and a dietitian, Mikayla Madden.
"We were given some strategies, and he was not progressing from there," Mrs Parker said.
"Eventually, he got diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis, which is an inflammatory disease of the esophagus."
Mrs Parker said she was lucky as the practitioners worked together and coordinated with the paediatricians to try and figure out what the problem was.
"There was not a dedicated clinic, so there was a lot of appointments," she said.
"It is a pretty isolating experience as you watch all of George's peers move along while you have this setback.
"You can feel alone."
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Mrs Parker said she was grateful when the staff at Wagga Community Health introduced her to another family who was having similar issues with their child.
"That was great to know we were not the only ones," she said.
Mikayla Madden, a dietitian at Wagga Community Health, has spent 12 months working on developing a new multi-disciplinary feeding clinic.
"We have always offered feeding services utilising dietitians, speech pathologists and occupational therapist when needed," she said.
"However having the clinic and set intake procedures allows us to deliver comprehensive assessment, ensures that we target those most at risk and improves supports for those children requiring multi-services to improve their feeding
"This not only benefits patients in that they will be offered appointments with all relevant clinicians at one time but also ensures that we as clinicians are working together to provide the best support we can to help families at home."
Ms Madden said the clinic would be running every second Monday, based out of Wagga Community Health Centre for eligible children.
"It will hopefully be up and running in two weeks," she said.
"It has taken close to 12 months for us to get this up and running. It's modelled on what has been around, but there is a lot that goes into setting these up."
Mrs Parker said it is fantastic this clinic will be formally set up to help families go through what she did.