Tests add to the overall picture of your child's condition. They provide information that helps the doctor make decisions about treatment. These will not be all the tests that might be done for your child, others might be included for particular reasons. Your childs' doctors will explain these to you and why they will be necessary.
These test your baby's oxygen levels while they are asleep and plot their changes over the course of the night. The aim is to find whether baby's airways are blocking off during sleep (sleep apnoea). This is very important and helps the doctors decide what measures need to be taken to protect or boost your child's airway when asleep. This test may be repeated a number of times at different ages and stages.
Baby swallows a liquid that can be seen on x-ray to show how swallowing mechanisms are operating, whether muscle coordination is a problem and whether obstruction during feeding is occuring. It can also help when diagnosing reflux and assessing its' severity. If a child is unable to swallow at the time of the test, the contrast fluid may be given via an intra-gastric tube (in the stomach, ie. naso or oro-gastric tubes) so assessment for reflux can continue.
This test is usually conducted over a 24-hour period to include the times when baby is awake, crying, asleep, feeding and the position baby is in at any time. A tube sits down in the oesophagus, just above the stomach, and measures the levels of stomach acid found. Nursing staff monitor the activities of the child so comparisons (between stomach acid levels and activity) can be made. This helps to tell whether reflux is worse with feeding or certain positioning and, again, helps add to the overall picture.
A tube with a camera lens attached is passed through the nose to sit at the back of the throat. This allows the doctor to very closely examine the shape and size of the airway. The severity of obstruction can be seen and this helps the doctors to decide the safest way to manage your child.
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Copyright © 2000, Michelle Cruse, Last Updated - 26/01/2000 16:06:25