What is Feeding Difficulties in Infancy?
Feeding difficulties in infancy refer to issues or problems that arise when trying to get an infant to feed or eat.
In younger infants, this often means problems getting an infant to suck to drink milk. This suck may then, in turn, be weak or ineffective. In some infants, this can include difficulty in staying awake when feeding, or losing interest in sucking before they are properly fed.
In older infants, feeding difficulties may include difficulties with chewing, as well as a lack of interest in food and in eating in general. Sometimes this will also include a pickiness with food, or a reluctance to try new foods.
Feeding difficulties may also trigger a failure to thrive and inadequate growth.
Understanding rare disease symptoms
Symptoms may affect multiple parts of the body. Understanding which part of the body a symptom affects can help us to better understand the potential underlying causes of a symptom, including a rare disease or genetic syndrome.
Infants with rare diseases may experience challenges with latching during breastfeeding or with sucking effectively from a bottle. Conditions such as hypotonia (low muscle tone) or craniofacial malformations can affect the infant’s ability to coordinate these movements, leading to feeding difficulties and inadequate nourishment.
Feeding difficulties in infancy caused by rare diseases often result in poor weight gain or failure to thrive. Disorders like metabolic conditions, neurogenetic syndromes (e.g., Rett syndrome), or congenital heart defects may impair an infant’s ability to feed properly, causing growth delays and developmental concerns.
What should I do next?
In some instances, feeding difficulties may be one of the features of a rare disease or genetic syndrome. To find out if someone with Feeding Difficulties in Infancy, may be due to a genetic syndrome, it is important to have a consultation and evaluation with a clinical genetic specialist. Specialists may also suggest specific genetic testing or other types of tests to help reach a diagnosis. FDNA’s AI technology can help speed up the diagnostic process by analyzing facial features and other health information.