A federal appeals court rejected a request to reinsert Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube today. The tube has now been removed by court order on three occasions: on April 24, 2001; on Oct. 15, 2003 ...

Enteral feeding, or tube feeding, provides nutrition and hydration directly to the stomach or intestine when one cannot eat or swallow.

Last year, after a federal appeals court rejected a request to reinsert Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, Daniel Engber explained how feeding tubes work.

Feeding tubes are designed to nourish patients, not deprive them of calories and hasten weight loss.

Make you more comfortable? Avoid hunger? Extend your life? At the end of life, artificial nutrition–through a feeding tube or intravenous fluids–might not meet those goals.

A feeding tube, a long piece of plastic that goes from outside the body directly into the stomach, can provide life-sustaining nutrition to a child who otherwise can't consume enough to survive.

ST. PAUL -- Almost a year after the nation watched Terri Schiavo die after being taken off a feeding tube, Minnesota legislators on Tuesday opened a raw debate over how to handle incapacitated ...