Loading ...

TOPLINE:

Hospitalizations for children with feeding difficulties increased significantly between 2009 and 2022, accompanied by longer average stays and higher medical charges.

METHODOLOGY:

• Researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis using 5-year data spanning 2009 to 2022 from a large US pediatric database to assess trends in hospital admissions, length of stay, and expenses for children with feeding difficulties.
• A total of 462,381 unweighted hospitalizations (649,017 weighted; mean age, 4.10 years; 55% boys) that had feeding difficulties listed as a primary or secondary diagnosis were included. These included dysphagia, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, and pediatric feeding disorder.
• The primary outcomes were the proportion of hospitalizations related to feeding difficulties, hospital length of stay, and associated charges.
• The secondary outcome was hospitalization involving surgical gastrostomy procedures.

TAKEAWAY:

• Among children with feeding difficulties, the weighted percentage of hospitalizations increased from 3.37% in 2009 to 6.14% in 2022 (P < .001). Between 2009 and 2022, the mean hospital length of stay increased from 10.49 days to 14.52 days, and mean charges increased from $98,223 to $192,287.
• In multivariable analyses, the presence of feeding difficulties was independently associated with increased hospital length of stay and charges.
• Those with feeding difficulties had a longer hospital length of stay, but only children with feeding difficulties as a secondary diagnosis incurred higher charges than those who didn’t have the diagnosis.

IN PRACTICE:

“This study adds to a growing literature on feeding difficulties by showing, for the first time, an association between the presence of feeding difficulties and higher pediatric inpatient resource utilization, and it raises important considerations regarding whether improvements to inpatient feeding care have potential to reduce utilization,” the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

The study was led by Suzanna Hirsch, MD, of the Aerodigestive Center of the Center for Motility and Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders at Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston. It was published online on May 25, 2026, in The Journal of Pediatrics.

LIMITATIONS:

Diagnoses such as failure to thrive or malnutrition were excluded from the definition of feeding difficulties. Researchers were unable to determine whether feeding difficulties were chronic and existed before the hospital admission or were acute and developed during the admission.

DISCLOSURES:

The study was supported by grants from National Institutes of Health, the American Neurogastroenterology and Motility Society Discovery Grant, and the Boston Children’s Hospital Office of Faculty Development/Basic & Clinical Translational Research Executive Committees Faculty Career Development Fellowship. The authors reported having no conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.