What can parents and caregivers do to support their child through the transplant process?
So the biggest things that a parent or a caregiver can do for a child that's going through their transplant admission are a few things. Number one, making sure they're spending time out of bed and physical therapy often will help with this, as well child life. Knowing what types of activities their child likes to give them, options and things that they can do to help keep them distracted during the stay goes a very long way as well.
Encouraging and offering them to eat and drink when they can without making it a fight, and then trying to really encourage these children to eat and take in nutrition, and then get back to eating after the transplant process, when we can often see children stop eating because of pain from wear and tear on the digestive tracts that we call mucositis after the chemotherapy really helps with getting children back on that road to recovery.
The last and very important thing that any parent or caregiver can do is if they see something that's not right or normal with their child, and they know their child better than anybody else in the hospital, to share that with the team so that we can make sure that we're addressing it. And if they're picking up on something subtle that may turn into something bigger, that they're helping us identify that as early as possible.
HealthTree • June 1, 2026