Back in 1986 we had a child born with a majority of his small intestines dead and had to have over 1/2 them removed and he ended up with a condition called Short Gut Syndrome. By the time he was 1 year old, he had ended up having 8 surgeries. He was confined to NICU for his first 4 months of his life, he came home connected to his TPN machine. He was on TPN (Total parenteral nutrition)for the first 10 months of his life. The doctors at the time told us he may never get off TPN and be able to eat foods. Only time would tell. So they had us sign him up for SSD..and he was denied...because he was gaining weight. They said stop the TPN and he would get it. He would have died had we done that, as he was eating predigested formula mixed at 1/4 strength. Then it was only 1 oz every 3 hours. Everyone knows a 6 month old eats more than that in a day. We were young and just gave up.