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Gwyneth Magrath Paediatric Specialist Dietitian

Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH )

I have been a Paediatric Dietitian for some years. In the 1980s I was part of the team at BCH which set up one of the first units to treat children newly diagnosed with diabetes at home. After this I worked with children with special needs, some with epilepsy . Here I learned a lot about the specialised feeding these children require and how the seizures they suffer from can make this so difficult to achieve.

I was asked to see my first patient who wished to start on a Ketogenic diet in the late 1990s. We have continued to offer this as a treatment at BCH since then. The numbers in the early days were small. However more funding has gradually become available and with the recent financial support from Matthew’s Friends I hope our clinic will soon be well established. B.C.H. is perhaps unique as I always have a colleague within the dietetic department who is working alongside me in a training position. This means currently within our department we have 2 recently trained dietitians who can prescribe the ketogenic diet as well as myself.

I was therefore delighted to be asked to be one of the three dietitians who sit on the Medical Board of Matthew’s Friends. I feel at last the diet is receiving serious recognition as a valid treatment for the intractable epilepsy of childhood and I am very pleased to be in at the beginning of such an exciting development