Hallie Bulkin warns clinicians not to miss airway safety red flags in children's feeding: coughing with liquids, wet vocal quality, frequent respiratory illness, mouth-breathing, and choking history. A structured screening checklist catches what memory and instinct miss.
Sometimes clinicians focus heavily on variety and exposure, and they miss things like the child coughing with liquids, or a wet vocal quality, or frequent respiratory illnesses. Maybe they have mouth breathing, or chronic congestion, or history of choking. Like, those aren't feeding quirks, my friends. Like, those are safety and airway considerations, and a structured screening checklist forces you to scan for this. You're scanning for these risks. Like, it's not just a preference, right? That is going to protect you, and it's going to protect the kids. And none of these mistakes are happening— I just want to clarify this— they're not happening because clinicians don't care. They're happening because screening without structure relies too heavily on memory and instinct, right? Human bias. Like, things kick in. That's what we need, these structured tools. Instinct alone is not enough in feeding.
What I Was Missing in Feeding Therapy: ARFID, Airway, and Myo with Samy Hernandez
