I emailed my pediatrician about Olivia spitting up frequently - ten or more times per day and he's having me bring her in today to check her weight and discuss her spit-up patterns. I am assuming she's going to be diagnosed with reflux.
Wondering what the treatment might be. Thanks for any info you can provide!
Re: If your Infant Had Reflux...What was Treatment?
My DD1 was put on Prevacid after Zantac did not work. As I recall, Zantac was a syrup that I gave her twice daily with a syringe. I saw no improvement in her symptoms. Prevacid was a capsule that I dumped into her bottles. I pumped almost exclusively so it wasn't an issue to give her the Prevacid. I saw improvement after giving her the Prevacid, but not as much as I would have liked. I think she was on it from about 2 months to about 6 months.
In retrospect, I'm not sure how much of the improvement was just due to her outgrowing the reflux as opposed to the medicine because by the time she was about 6 months she hardly spit up at all anymore.
Reflux is absolutely normal in every infant. They all have immature sphincters at the top of the stomach that allow its contents to creep back up the esophagus.
GERD is why a doc would typically prescribe a medication.
DS will deal with life-long GERD because of his birth defect. He has always been on Prilosec in oral suspension (generic is Omeprazole). If the pedi wants to medicate strictly based on "spit up patterns," I'd request further diagnostics.
Two of the tests off the top of my head are a pH probe and esophagram.
Have you been thickening any of her feeds? Have you done anything to help her keep it down? Have you been talking to her doc about this or is this the beginning of discussions?
This is the absolute beginning - I emailed the other night and said that she is spitting up 10 to 20 times per day. He said he wanted to see her to do a weight check and discuss treatment options, diet patterns. She'll be 6 months next week and I haven't really done many solids, except for 'dabbling' in rice cereal and some stage 1 foods.
Haven't tried thickening or anything yet.
The natural baby reflux is typically outgrown somewhere between 6-12 months. Allergies or intolerances are another VERY typical explanation for frequent spit up and any discomfort in the gut during and after feeds.
If it ends up being GERD, at this age it is not typically complicated to wean off of the medication. They simply outgrow their dose as they gain weight. So, medicating isn't the end of the world, JMHO that it shouldn't be the first solution until actual diagnostic studies are done. If you follow 0-3 board, (not all, but) SO many people jump on the med train because they see it on the boards and then take their Bump diagnosis to the pedi. I'm jaded, I'll be the first to admit it...
If this is just starting or getting worse, it sounds more like a food allergy/intolerance.
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My DS was diagnosed at 5 weeks old. He was on a combination of zantac, rice cereal to keep his food down in his bottles, and small feedings every 1 1/2 hours. It worked wonders and we saw results pretty quickly (once we had the right balance of feeding/medication/rice cereal).
With that being said, reflux showing up at 6 months isnt the norm. Generally the symptoms diminish at that age as LO starts on solids and sits up more. I'd say if your pedi recommends reflux treatment, try it for a week and if you don't see improvement, ask for a referral to a pedi GI specialist.
I don't agree. I wouldnt put my child through invasive testing just to get an accurate reflux diagnosis. Even when my DS hadnt outgrown reflux at 15 months old, my GI doctor was relunctant to explore more invasive testing because there are risks to them. Zantac has been around for many years and has been proven safe.
I do agree with overmedication and think that reflux medications should be prescribed for more serious cases, like if the baby's weight is low because of the vomiting or is in terrible pain, but I think that there's no harm in trying the medication and seeing if it works first.
Esophagram is the FARTHEST thing from invasive. It's a barium swallow. They put barium in baby's formula and take a series of xrays and observe the flow of things. pH probe is a secondary test... and I think we have differing ideas of what constitutes invasive.
What I've been told from friends who have kids with reflux, and my DH has reflux too, is when you're feeding them you have to stop mid-bottle and burp them. Then once they've burped, finish the bottle/feeding and burp them again. Once they are done feeding, sit them up (or so they are mostly reclining) in a bouncy seat or swing so the food doesn't come back up.
DH's mom did that and it worked fine w/o medication. As they get older, they can be given saltine crackers to reduce the acid. And older still, they can be given meds like Prevacid or Prilosec.
Thanks for all of the info, ladies!
Just got back from the dr. appointment. She is holding steady at the 50% line for weight (though she's 90% for height, as she has been since about 2 months). He seems to think that her reflux is mild but enough that we should try some Zantac in order to help prevent esophageal erosion.
So, she's to take 1 ml twice per day and he'll see how she's doing again in about ten days (She has her 6 month well-check then so that's convenient) and at that point, if things aren't improved, either increase her dosage or talk about switching formulas to something like Good Start.
I feel good with this - The spitting up does not seem to cause her any pain... in fact, she is usually grinning when it happens so hopefully this will help with things.
Our 3 year old used to spit up after every single meal. This continued until he was about 17 months. It was beyond annoying with all the clean up we had to do. However, he did not have reflux and was never on any medication. His pedi said he just had a sensitive stomach. Even now, if he eats too fast he throws up.
One of our twins was diagnosed with reflux shortly after coming home from the hospital (9.5 weeks in the NICU). He had only been on bottles (instead of feeding tube) for about a week but they were "kicked out" of the hospital by insurance. Anyway, within a few days I knew something was wrong. He was *screaming* at every bottle, pushing it away, arching his back but then pulling it back because he was hungry. He was diagnosed with reflux when even taking him off breastmilk and putting him on the special formula didn't help. He had a combination of axid and prevacid which he was on for about a year. The medication had to be increased every time he gained a bit of weight because it would stop working and we'd be right back to the screaming/spitting. He eventually outgrew it as his system matured (around 14 months old).
If your little one is just spitting without the pain then it may be an allergy/intolerance or something else is bothering him but it's probably not reflux. I hope he gets better soon! Reflux seriously sucks.
My one twin was diagnosed with reflux at 2 months. Her major symptom was screaming/crying through her feedings because she was in pain. The second biggest symptom was the stiffing of her back and trying to almost thrust herself out of our arms while feeding. The are the 2 most common symptoms of reflux in newborns. She did have major spitting up, but not that it was a lot of times in a day, just that she would spit up half her feeding after eating it. It was more than spitting up, it was almost like vomitting because it was so much of her feeding.
She was put on Zantac that I had to give her 2x a day at least 1/2 hour before feeding her. I saw improvement as soon as 3 days after starting the medicine. She stopped the huge throw ups after feedings and she also stopped screaming through her feedings. She also started putting on weight which was a relief because she lost so much after birth and needed to catch up to begin with and wasn't catching up because she was losing so much of her feeding from throwing it back up.
If her pedi does put her on something be prepared for it to stop working at around 4 months old, this means she needs an increase in the amount so you will need to see the doc again. They usually have a growth spurt between 3 and 4 months and then the meds do not work effectively because they need adjusted for the new weight of the baby.
My DD was on Zantac until she turned 1. When she went on solids we were able to drop her only 1x a day medication, but she couldn't go without until she was almost a year old. She was finally able to get off it when she went to eating mostly table foods.