Pectin Use in Pediatric Intestinal Rehabilitation

This will be a modified cross over design. Patients who meet eligibility criteria, will be consented in their standard of care intestinal rehab clinic visit. Due to the fact that some patients who qualify for the study may already be on liquid pectin prior to the study, we will not be able to randomize all of the patients prior to starting the intervention. If a patient is on liquid pectin, they will stay on liquid pectin as their first intervention. If the patient is on no form of daily pectin, they will be randomized to either green beans or liquid pectin first. The patient will either be given Ball real fruit liquid pectin, 1g fiber/tsp, (mixed in formula or other liquid) via oral route or gastric tube (gtube) or Gerber stage two green bean baby food, 2gfiber/jar, via oral route or gtube. We will have patients stay on either Ball real fruit liquid pectin or Gerber stage 2 green beans for three months. After the three-month trial on one of the pectin formulation, they will switch to the other. However, we will not start collecting data until a week after the switch to allow for a washout period without compromising potential benefit that the patient was receiving. Each patient will receive 2g/kg of fiber per day(based on previous case reports) with a max of 6g/day. Patients will be followed in the Children's Intestinal Rehabilitation Clinic at Le Bonheur (CIRCLe). Standard of care follow up for short bowel syndrome patients is three months if they are doing well. During the three months, families will be contacted every 4 weeks via patient portal or phone call to ask specific questions on their current form of pectin, amount, days missed, ease/difficulty of administration and clinical symptoms. This will also serve as a reminder to the parents of what they should be providing to the child and will assist in optimizing data collection. After three months of being on one formulation of pectin, they will change to the other formulation and same follow up will occur. Stool output data collection will be delayed one week in between interventions as detailed above to allow for a "wash out" period. Standard of care also includes lab work (complete metabolic panel, magnesium, phosphorous, triglyceride, complete blood count with differential) at each 3 month visit. Trace minerals and soluble vitamins are usually collected annually, but for this study, will plan to obtain serum copper and iron levels after each intervention(x2). However, additional venous puncture will not be required. Therefore, data can be collected prior to intervention and following each intervention, then be compared between the groups. If able, we will collect stool samples from patients prior to intervention and after intervention to evaluate the microbiome. Recruitment in the study would be for a total period of six months. Interventions would be completed over a six month period. This allows us a total of 12 months for recruitment, intervention and data collection.