Episode 7: A conversation with Teresa Foley, Feeding Therapist

Thank you so much, Teresa, for agreeing to talk to us.

We really appreciate you giving us the time.

Thanks for

having me, ladies.

Teresa, can we just start with what is a

feeding therapist? So a feeding therapist is health professional, corey registered, Mainly either a dietitian, speech and language therapist or occupational therapist who has specific clinical experience and postgraduate training in supporting children, young people or even adults who are struggling to eat for some reason.

So the reasons that people struggle to eat can be very vast and varied and complex.

Many of the children that I support are neurodiverse, so perhaps have autism, ADHD, something like that.

There's another presentation called Pediatric Feeding Disorder, which is more related to the developmental period when children and infants are learning to eat.

So I also see children in that very early stage when they're acquiring the skills to eat.

Then it's quite a vast area of practice, as you can imagine, because there's so many different reasons for why children can struggle to eat, but also there's so many factors at play you know like i always say eating is so much more than the food like we eat to come together as a family we eat to celebrate we have a birthday cake when it's a celebration so there's so many different skills and factors involved in eating that uh supporting someone in this area can be very multifaceted very interesting it is

like in order to see you when should i

be worried about my child's eating That is a great question.

I suppose in the first instance, our number one priority always has to be that the child is nutritionally stable, that they're growing, that their height and weight are tracking.