Neonatal enteral feeding system
AssigneeMedela Holding AG
InventorsDongchul D. Hyun, Michael T. Fleury
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A neonatal enteral feeding system for delivering neonate fluid is disclosed. The system includes a cooling unit for cooling the breast milk before, during and after a feeding cycle to mitigate unwanted bacterial growth and reduction of fat content in the breast milk. The system also includes a warming unit for heating the cold breast milk to a temperature above room temperature (preferably, standard body temperature) so that the neonate can focus his or her energy on healing, growth and digestion instead of heat generation. Additionally, the system has a peristaltic pump which draws the breast milk from a bottom side of the container and the container is vented so as to be capable of delivering all of the breast milk in the container to the neonate.
Claims20
A system for feeding a neonate, the system comprising:
- a body;
- a holding mechanism coupled to the body and moveable relative thereto for facilitating engagement with a container to position the for positioning a container in an inverted position so that breast milk contained within the container flows out downward from the container;
- a pump for pumping the breast milk contained within the container;
- a sensor for determining an amount of breast milk remaining in at least one of the container and a tube connectable to the container, the tube being disposable within the neonate;
- and
- a controller for controlling the pump, the controller operative to regulate a speed of the pump to provide a consistent flow rate of the breast milk to the neonate and to shut off the pump after determining the amount of breast milk remaining in the container or the tube or both so that all of the breast milk in the container is fed to the neonate and without delivering air into the neonate.
A system for feeding a neonate, the system comprising:
- a body;
- a holding mechanism coupled to the body and moveable relative thereto for facilitating engagement with a container to position the container containing nutritional fluid for the neonate;
- a pump for pumping the nutritional fluid contained within the container;
- a controller operative to start and stop operation of the pump for starting and stopping flow of nutritional fluid in a tube connected in fluid communication with the container, the tube being disposed within the neonate to deliver the nutritional fluid to the neonate;
- and
- wherein the controller is operative to delay changing the pump from an off to an on condition until a user selected period of time, based on parameters set by a medical professional, has elapsed.
A system for feeding a neonate, the system comprising:
- a body;
- a cooling unit coupled to the body and engageable with a container including neonatal feeding fluid for cooling the container, the cooling unit including a pair of modules sized and structured to be cooperatively engageable with the container, the pair of modules being moveable relative to the body for facilitating engagement with the container;
- a pump for pumping the neonatal feeding fluid from within the container when the container is engaged with the cooling unit;
- a sensor for determining an amount of neonatal fluid remaining in the container when the container is engaged with the cooling unit;
- and
- a controller for controlling the pump, the controller operative to regulate a speed of the pump to provide a prescribed flow rate of the neonatal feeding fluid to the neonate and to shut off the pump after determining the amount of neonatal feeding fluid remaining in the container is below a prescribed level.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.