Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Services

At the Stanford Medicine Children’s Health IBD program, we don’t treat just the disease–we treat the whole child. We surround you and your child with a multidisciplinary team of experts who each apply their knowledge to determine optimal care by working together. Our specialized inflammatory bowel disease doctors provide research-driven, advanced medical interventions that we round out with IBD nutritional therapies to calm inflammation, psychosocial services to help you cope with IBD, and integrative GI therapies that take a holistic approach to treat IBD.

Finding the right treatment

Our ultimate goal is to help your child achieve sustained remission as well as normalized their growth and development. With this renewed sense of control, your child will regain his or her full academic, physical, and social potential. We simultaneously educate and empower children to stay healthy by recognizing disease flares early and avoiding triggers that cause flares. For each and every child, we find just the right mix of standard medical treatments, psychological care, and dietary and complementary therapies to ease IBD and, most important, allow the child to live a full life. We believe that treating disease effectively at this age helps children lead normal and productive lives and minimizes their chance of needing support and disability services later on as adults.

Our My IBD Care Book provides a summary of IBD and an invaluable data-tracking resource for those who have been diagnosed with the condition.

Services include the following:

• Medical services. We provide a full range of medical therapies, from conventional to the latest medications, personalized to meet the unique needs of each child. Additionally, we guide and monitor health maintenance issues like vaccinations, education about the medicines and IBD, self-care and safe practices. When needed, we also coordinate the care of our sickest patients with other Stanford Medicine Children’s Health programs dedicated to intestinal failure, including the intestinal rehabilitation program.
• Interdisciplinary Care Clinic. Often, your first interaction with us–especially if you are new to IBD–this clinic provides a comprehensive evaluation of your child’s and family’s needs from every facet of care–medical, nutritional, emotional, and psychosocial. Here, we provide a roadmap for your child’s care moving forward.
• Psychosocial services. We are unique in having a dedicated IBD psychologist and social worker who partner with children and their families to (1) support children and families with new IBD diagnoses; (2) provide support before and after procedures; (3) help families adhere to their IBD care plan; and (4) provide one-on-one and group therapy to support children and teach strategies to manage stress, pain, anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges that can be associated with IBD.
• IBD nutritional therapies. Many members of our medical care team specialize in nutritional therapy. We help you to problem-solve not only IBD-related nutritional needs but also everyday challenges, including picky eating and nutritional needs with sports and dietary supplements. We provide consultation on a range of therapeutic diets for IBD including enteral nutrition therapy as well as promising breakthrough diets with thorough oversight and ongoing guidance from our registered dietitians who specialize in IBD nutrition. We assess and monitor nutritional status, growth and vitamin deficiencies to optimize nutrition and to help children thrive and grow to their full potential.
  • SCD/mSCD: Specific carbohydrate diet/modified specific carbohydrate diet
  • EEN/PEN: Exclusive enteral nutrition and partial enteral nutrition
  • CDED: Crohn’s disease exclusion diet
  • Other diets: Guidance on a variety of other diets, including, but not limited to, anti-inflammatory, autoimmune protocol (AIP), IBD-AID, low FODMAP, Mediterranean, paleo, vegetarian, vegan
  • General healthy nutrition
  • Nutrition groups and community events
• Integrative GI therapies. We areproud to be at the leading edge of employing a truly holistic approach to IBD care that soothes the mind, body, and spirit by incorporating a variety of evidence-based modalities, including traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, mind-body therapies, botanicals, and nutritional supplements. Stanford Medicine Children’s Health offers one of the highest levels of expertise in integrative medicine for gastrointestinal illnesses by specially trained medical doctors.
• Second opinion program. We can also provide you with a second opinion to help with confirmation of the diagnosis, suggest further diagnostic testing that might be indicated and further guide medical or nutritional therapy. We’ll address any questions you may have related to the disease. We can also work with your current provider and offer a comprehensive plan for your child’s care.
• Teen transition program. Shifting the balance of responsibility from child to adult as a teen grows can be tricky. This program empowers and educates children as young as 12 years of age to help them gradually take control of self-management and decision-making as they graduate to adulthood.
• IBD community engagement efforts. We know that IBD treatment is most successful when it takes place in a supportive community. We are continually growing our community connections and creating an IBD community among our IBD team and families.