From the archives: Shadowing a Cleft Palate Nurse!

Hello there, Happy Easter! Thank you for stopping by.

This is a post created from, slightly edited, collated tweets I posted on my twitter (SpeechieAtDMU) last July, when I was lucky enough to go on a home visit with a cleft palate nurse!

                                                                                               

July 27th 2017 -
I have an amazing opportunity to shadow a cleft palate nurse & specialist SLT! The nurse does on-call work with newborn baby.
I am so lucky to have opportunities independent of uni, I'm so excited. Working with newborns, infants and their families is such a dream for me.

 August 3th 2017 - 
I am having a bit of a refresh of cleft lip and palate physiology, incidence & care pathways ready for tomorrow. 1 in 700 babies are born with cleft lip/palate!

 August 4th 2017 -
I am up bright & early this morning; just got confirmation from the on-call cleft nurse for our schedule this morning - so we're off to see some newborn babies! 
























We made a house visit to see a nine day old little baby boy. He was the most gorgeous little baby, and was born with a unilateral cleft lip and palate. It was so lovely to meet him and his mummy and daddy, with their first home visit. Little baby boy had put on weight since Monday which is fab news too!

 We had a little cuddle & saw how well he was feeding with his mummy with a special bottle and teat for babies with cleft lip and palates. The lovely cleft palate nurse and I talked about the importance of positive feeding experiences for both baby & Mum. In particular, looking at joint eye contact, getting a good position of baby and mum, and the importance of burping. 
The fab cleft palate nurse also advised Mum & Dad to feed baby a little cooled boiled water after his bottle to help clear his cleft and mouth of milk. 

                                                                                                  

I had such a good time on this visit, I would also really love to spend some time with the specialist cleft SLT on the team too - fingers crossed!  Whilst there can be feeding difficulties (among other things) with babies who have cleft lip and/or cleft palates, as they grow and develop there can also be difficulties with speech. So there is a couple of points during the care pathway, where Speech and Language Therapists (SLT's) can come in to provide help and support.

I am hoping to be able to go out on a couple more visits once the uni term has finished, so watch this space...

I hope you thought this was an interesting read, I'd love to hear what you think - thank you for having a nosey!


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