Stomach distention related to NGT feeding?

Nursing Students Student Assist

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Hello :D

I'm currently a third year student taking her first clumsy steps in the clinical exposure phase.

I was assigned to the Neurosurgery ward where most of the patients has nasogastric tubes-- which means the arm-aching feeding is to follow. I noticed that patients with NGTs have distended stomachs but their BMI's are obviously in the underweight category. I tried to look it up at several books I have at home but most of it only explained the proceedure on NGT insertion and other skill-related facts...

...which brought me to me here to ask: is distending stomachs a normal occurance for patients with NGTs? If so, what is the reason behind this? If not, what do you think are the possible causes for those distended stomachs?

Please and thank you.

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

Gas related to the contents of the tube feeding? Abdomens become distended because of air collecting in the bowel or intestines.

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Gas related to the contents of the tube feeding?

Probably... but if so, won't the excessive air give the patient gas pain?

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

Yes. They may or may not get abdominal cramps. However, if the patient is neurally compromised (speech center damaged) or has brain damage they may not be able to tell you they have pain.

Also, if nerves are damaged, they could have gastroparesis which would slow down peristalsis which would also lead to distension. I forgot about that one.

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Specializes in Cardiac.
Hello :D

which means the arm-aching feeding is to follow. .

I'm guessing that these pts are being bolused fed, and aren't on continuous tube feeding?

We feed pts in their duodenum, and not via NGT. Is this LTC? Are you checking residuals? If they have residuals (for us, it's greater than 2 hrs of feeds) then they may not be absorbing the TF, or have an obstruction, etc. Or, it's just gas like Daytonite said.

All of our feedings are on a pump from 30-60 cc/hr.

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if these are long term (which i doubt, with ng instead of gtube) it could be lack of muscle tone

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isn't NGT supposed to decompress? Do they have WNL bowel sounds-skeery!

I had a pt who had the NGT after an ileus post op, phasing back on Tf and had a terrible time with gas/residuals-they were advancing him too fast. He was already really malnourished and I think they were just going to put him on tpn.

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