Post traumatic feeding or eating disorders are behaviors exhibited when an infant relates a painful or frightening experience with eating.

Does your infant or child cry at the sight of a bottle or a glass of milk? If so, they may have a post traumatic feeding or eating disorder.

Children’s National’s psychiatrist Irene Chatoor, MD, is an expert in childhood feeding disorders. In her book, When Your Child Won’t Eat or Eats Too Much, she explains the basics of how to introduce healthy foods to avoid the development of a childhood feeding problem and also outlines specific feeding problems she has come across in her research.

Post traumatic feeding or eating disorders are behaviors exhibited when an infant relates a painful or frightening experience with eating. This disorder is also known as choking phobia, swallowing phobia and functional dysphagia.

Most of the time, this fear is associated with bottle feedings, but can also be associated with solid food. The fear can be triggered by more than one incident of vomiting, gagging or choking as a result of forceful feeding by a caregiver. Often, toddlers will remember their fear of drinking milk from a bottle and this will transition to a fear of drinking milk from a cup later.

Infants are not the only ones who experience this fear of feedings. Children can experience a fear of eating solid foods. They can become fearful of choking after they have had an experience choking, watched someone else choke or even heard a scary story about someone else choking.

If your child is unable to overcome their feeding fears, professional help may be necessary.

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