An outpouring of stories and support have flooded social media in response to the 2019 Feeding Tube Awareness Week.
Caregivers of children, seniors and loved ones managing complex health challenges coalesced around a product that is making life possible. That product is feeding tubes.
Feeding tubes and enteral feeding offer nutritional support to adults, children and infants who are unable to perform the physical function of eating.
This product is typically made of polyurethane, polyvinyl chloride or silicone. The pliable, yet durable characteristics of these chemicals make them a high performer for this application as feeding tubes must have the ability to be bent, while being strong enough to avoid kinks and resist the corrosive effects of stomach acid.
Second only to polyethylene, polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride are the most widely produced commodity plastics.
The raw materials used to create these chemicals are petroleum and natural gas liquids, like ethane and propane. These materials are refined in the petrochemical manufacturing process to create the polypropylene or polyvinyl chloride.
These chemicals are the building blocks to products we use daily, with key applications across the healthcare, construction, electronic, automotive and packaging industries.
Single use plastic products are key in healthcare and hospital settings as they can come individually packaged, are sterile and can be made transparent so that fluids can be monitored by their administrator.
These qualities make feeding tubes a life-saving solution for the more than 400,000 individuals in the U.S. using enteral feeding.
We are proud to represent an industry that creates the critical products to improve the quality of life and health for so many deserving patients in a healthcare or home setting.
Feeding Tube Awareness Week® was created by the Feeding Tube Awareness Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, to increase awareness of feeding tubes and enteral feeding. Learn more: www.feedingtubeawareness.org.
