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Have a child with Failure To Thrive? If you want to know what you can do today to improve your child's situation, then you need to join and participate in this site. This is the only social network dedicated to information and discussion about the issues of Failure To Thrive.

I have created this site as a down-to-earth community for families with children who have a diagnosis of Failure To Thrive (FTT) and other developmental problems. You will find information and discussion about these difficulties on this site. Joining and participating can be very helpful for getting your child back on track.

As a member, you can access all the Blogs and Forum Discussions. As an introduction to our site, one featured case study is posted on this page (later in this column) so you can see what we do here.

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Rodger Bailey, MS

A Failure To Thrive Case

As we started:

Betty is a 3 and a half year old infant, an only child, living with her mom in southern USA. She simply looks like a very large baby. She was a premature baby and she never matured. She has constant medical difficulties including severe digestive difficulties which brings with it constant constipation. She is not walking, talking, reaching, or pointing. She cannot even lift her head or turn over in bed. She is simply a very large infant.

Her mom has been very careful to permit only organic food and other products near Betty. She also has Betty on a GFCF Diet.

Working with her and her mom:

Our testing did not discover that Betty was sensitive to wheat or milk products, which is the focus of the GFCF Diet. Instead, we discovered that Betty is strongly intolerant of corn and all corn by-products. We found that Betty was sensitive to the laundry detergent and the dryer sheets used by the family. There were other foods which had been restricted for Betty before we started working with her, but for which we found no sensitivity in Betty. We found other foods which had not been restricted, but which did need to be restricted for Betty. Her mom immediately made the changes in Betty's diet and in the household cleaning chemicals.

In the first session, Betty was quite fussy and her mom told us that Betty had been constipated for three days and was very uncomfortable. Isabel was able to determine and teach the needed treatment for the constipation which the mom did while on the phone with us. Betty immediately evacuated and Betty's mom started believing in the work we do. The mom told us that Betty continued to evacuate diapers full, often, for the next several days until she finally settled down to a normal bowel schedule.

When we find a child has severe developmental problems and the laundry detergent and/or the dryer sheets are a sensitivity problem for the child, we ask the mom to wash everything in the house again without any detergent or dryer sheets to get the last of the residue of those products out of all the clothes, sheets, and towels of the house. This total clearing of all that residue helps the child get a fresh start in a clean environment which is free of those things to which the child's body has been constantly reacting.

For Betty this clearing was immediately helpful and she started trying to turn her head toward sounds. She started interacting more with her parents and care-givers and was more happy than before we started.

One difficulty for Betty was that she was reacting strongly to something in the treatment center to which she went every day for physical therapy. Betty's response to this was constant respiratory problems. The mom was not convinced that there was something bad for Betty there, until there was a two-week period when Betty did not go to the center. During that time, all of Betty's respiratory problems cleared up and she started making other strong developmental steps.

The dilemma was that the public assistance (for physical and medical benefits) for Betty was tied to her regular attendance at that particular treatment center. Another problem was that Betty really enjoyed the interactions with the caregivers and the other children at that center. We were able to develop a process whereby Betty would go to that center for an hour every day, and the mom would give Betty a treatment to neutralize her strong reaction to whatever was the problem at that center. This worked well and Betty started to make more developmental progress.

Betty started lifting her head and pointing and reaching. So we knew that we were making progress. One session the mother told us that Betty rolled off her bed onto the floor. This was both wonderful and surprising at the same time. Wonderful, because Betty was continuing to make developmental progress. Rolling over is one of those specific developmental milestones which Betty had not yet achieved and we were delighted to see that she was doing it now.

Surprising, that the mom had not recognized this as a clear new developmental step. I understand that their child had not been able to roll over for 3 and a half years, and maybe they had resolved that Betty would never grow up. So, they had removed the protective bars to make it easier to get their very large infant in and out of bed.

Betty is now able hold herself up, hold objects in her hands, reach and point, follow people with her eyes and her head, and pump her legs and wave her arms in joy. She is even starting to position her arms and legs to help her mom dress her. She is moving forward down the developmental path. In every session with her mom we learn about the new developmental steps that Betty is taking.

If your child has not developed appropriately, join us here so you can learn about what you need to do to get your child back on track.