RESOURCES FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS WITH IBS AND THEIR PARENTS
Most information and resources on this website and other linked websites about IBS are applicable to both adults and children with IBS, but here we highlight information specific to children and adolescents with IBS or other functional GI or GI motility disorders.
International Foundation for Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD) pediatric-specific website :
About Kids GI http://www.aboutkidsgi.org
Association for Gastrointestinal Motility Disorders
Has resources for people of all ages, with specific divisions for pediatrics, adolescents and family/caregivers.
Paid membership allows the option to be included on and receive its list of networking contacts.
AGMD main website http://www.agmdhope.org
Online support forum through Inspire.com, includes active sections for pediatric and caregiver topics (site registration with Inspire.com required; AGMD membership encouraged by AGMD but not required) http://www.inspire.com/groups/agmd-gi-motility/
University of North Carolina Center for Functional GI and Motility Disorders
Downloadable educational articles include several on pediatric and adolescent IBS, RAP/FAP/CAPS (recurrent abdominal pain, also known as functional abdominal pain or centrally-mediated abdominal pain syndrome, a diagnosis similar to IBS without the disturbances in bowel habits) and other pediatric functional GI and pediatric GI motility concerns.
http://www.med.unc.edu/ibs/patient-education/educational-gi-handouts
Also check the online chat archives or schedule and open research studies on the UNC site for periodic topics or clinical trials related to children or adolescents.
Helping Your Child with IBS by Nina Pan, IBS Impact founder, and Shawn Case, founding webmaster.
(Link opens in a subpage of IBS Impact.com. Originally published in April 2012 as a guest post on the Ask Moxie.org parenting site, which is no longer active. Thank you to Magda Pecsenye, founder of AskMoxie.org, for hosting this article for many years and for allowing IBS Impact to continue to make it available here.)
Michael Mahoney, clinical hypnotherapist in the U.K. offers a home CD/MP3 program IBS Audio 60, specifically for children with IBS or RAP/FAP. Please see Mike’s article in the Family and Friends section of this website and a link to information about his IBS Audio 100 program for adults with IBS in the Links section. Mike has long been a strong supporter of IBS education and awareness and a friend to IBS Impact, but IBS Impact receives no payment from him or any other linked source. Please make your own informed decisions on treatment in consultation with your child’s own health care providers.
UCLA Pediatric Pain Program (Los Angeles, California)
Johns Hopkins Children’s Center IBS Page (Baltimore, Maryland)
Nationwide Children’s Hospital Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (Columbus, Ohio)
Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt Pediatric Functional GI Program (Nashville, Tennessee)
Irritable Bowel Syndrome in Adolescents (article)
by Andree Rasquin, MD and Arlene Caplan PhD
Universite de Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
(from the UNC Center for Functional GI Disorders patient education archives)
What Parents Need to Know about Their Children’s Abdominal Pain (November 2014 video)
by Miranda van Tilburg, PhD
Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A June 2014 post on the IBS Impact blog reviewing this book by Michael Lawson, MD and Jessica Del Pozo, PhD of Kaiser Permanente of Northern California
IBS.Mindovergut.com page “Advice for Teens” (written for teens with IBS)
Site maintained by clinical psychologist Simon Knowles, PhD, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia.
article on MedPage Today in the “AGA Reading Room” (American Gastroenterological Association) February 2, 2017.
Melissa M. DuPen, School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, Miranda A.L. van Tilburg,PhD, University of North Carolina Center for Functional GI and Motility Disorders, Shelby L. Langer, PhD, College of Nursing and Health Innovation, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Tasha B. Murphy, PhD, School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle, Joan M. Romano, PhD, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, and Rona L. Levy, PhD, School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle.
Published in the journal Children, September 2016. Functional Abdominal Pain Disorder (FAPD), also known as Functional Abdominal Pain, Recurrent Abdominal Pain or Centrally-Mediated Abdominal Pain Syndrome (CAPS), is similar to IBS without the bowel disturbances. FAPD is treated similarly to IBS pain. This study found that children with FAPD, whose parents were not protective, and communicated the belief that their children could handle the pain had better outcomes than those parents who were protective and believed that their children could not handle it.
The Pediatric Rome IV Criteria- What’s New?
Ilan J. N. Koppen, MD, Emma Children’s Hospital/Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Samuel Nurko, MD, MPH Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, Miguel Saps, MD and Carlo DiLorenzo, MD, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, USA, Marc A. Benninga, MD, PhD Emma Children’s Hospital/Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Published in the journal Expert Review of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, online version, 24 January 2017
U.S. FDA Approves IB-Stim, First Medical Device for IBS Pain in Adolescents, June 2019
Last update to IBS and Children page March 2020.