What's The Story?

This photograph shows a young boy having his lunch via a gastronomy tube.

Children who are unable to eat or gain sufficient nutrition orally may be tube fed. There are two main types of tube feeding - gastronomy tube feeding and nasogastric tube feeding. You can see a photograph of a baby with a nasogastric tube here.

Gastronomy tube feeding usually means a tube is placed through the child's abdomen and into the stomach. A naso-gastric tube is put down into the stomach through the nose and fixed to the face with surgical tape.

Click here for more information about different methods of tube feeding.