Forced Nutrition of a Pediatric Patient with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects an estimated 1 in 54 children aged 8 years in the United States (Maenner MJ, Shaw KA, Baio et al., 2020). For many of these children, there are concomitant eating and/or behavioral challenges that can make managing their nutritional health challenging. This commentary responds to a particularly challenging case in which a pediatric patient with ASD presented to the local hospital's emergency department with severe weight loss and malnutrition.