Marlene – daytime pump feeds

"The district nurse was doing it, but she showed me... and it's easy"
- Trevor

Marlene and Trevor tried a few approaches until they found which method suited them best. Their confidence with feeding has grown and grown – even taking the feeding pump away with them to the caravan and using it on the go!

When they first started off, they tried using a pump feed overnight – but Marlene had started using a breathing support machine (called BiPAP or Non-Invasive Ventilation (NIV)) at night too. For some people using both is fine; for Marlene it was too much to manage every night. With their home enteral feeding dietitian, Sean, they quickly settled on using the pump twice a day for bolus feeds – 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours in the evening.

Marlene also has small ‘shots’ of a high calorie drink about 2 or 3 times a day, that are easy to manage as syringe bolus feeds. A mixture of feeding methods can be used successfully to fit around your own specific needs. All these terms are explained in Key Definitions.