Preemies

Does this sound like reflux?

My little guy is almost 3 weeks old and almost 37 days gestation. When he started out with the bottle, he was doing great. Within the past week, though, he coughs about once either during his feedings, when I'm burping him, or within a few minutes after a feeding. When he coughs during the middle of a feeding, it does sometimes choke him a bit...meaning it looks like it takes him a second to get his breathing regulated. He does not act like he is in pain and he very rarely burps any milk back up. In fact, I've only seen him spit up a couple of times and it was minimal.  He sometimes sounds to have a bit of nasal congestion towards the end of a feeding and after. He does seem to be gassy during/after meals and turns red and bears down, but it seems to be more like he is passing gas (which I sometimes hear) or trying to have a bowel movement.

I'm wondering if it's reflux or if it's just the fact that he is now taking more volume and trying to take it in faster.

I feed him side-lying and tilted upright about 40 degrees, use Dr. Brown's bottle with a slow-flow nipple, and have recently started trying to burp him more frequently throughout the feeding instead of just after the entire feeding. I keep him upright after meals, but he doesn't seem that uncomfortable when I do lay him flat down, but just becomes a bit restless. He is gaining weight great and this does not seem to be affecting him wanting to eat/take in larger volumes. But it is VERY STRESSFUL to ME when he coughs during almost every feeding.

Any thoughts or advice or similar experiences? 

Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml

Re: Does this sound like reflux?

  • I agree with Boston that the coughing could just be that he's getting the milk too fast.  We were in the NICU until almost 41 weeks gestation and they were very adament against letting us move up at that age from the Doc Brown's preemie nipple to Level 1 - they kept telling us Level 1 was too fast for our DS.  So it could be worth trying that.

    FWIW...my DS has pretty bad reflux...he does cough a lot but it's AFTER feeding, when he's fighting the milk back down.  He's very congested from the milk in his nose, and there's no way we could lay him flat within two hours of his last feeding or he'd puke it all up.  Oh and he pukes up his entire bottle between 1 and 4 times a day.  Not fun!!!  Even so, our pedi considers his reflux mild since he doesn't appear to be in a lot of pain afterwards.

  • My girls both had pretty severe reflux. One had it bad enough that she ended up staying in the NICU longer than she would have otherwise because she would hold her breath when the milk was coming up causing her to have As then Bs.

    They both spit up a lot. They couldn't be flat, pretty much ever, or they would spit up all over and Lil would usually start to choke. They were both in pretty considerable amounts of pain. 

    From what I understand, most babies have some reflux, but it isn't a treatable thing unless it is causing pain. It is something that they should grow out of. That being said, I would absolutely bring up my concerns to the pedi.

    Good luck!

This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards
"
"