Does my infant have acid reflux?
vlcoley
member
Hi -
I am a first time mom. My daughter is 12 days old. She is gaining weight and by all accounts, is a very healthy baby. However, she is having some issues associated with breastfeeding/gas/indigestion/who knows. She is EBF....since day one she has latched on no problem and eats plenty. I do have a forceful let down which makes it tough for her to keep up with the aggressive flow....she chokes/coughs a couple times during each feeding and also gulps a ton of air. All of these things make me think her fussiness in between feedings is associated with gas pains in her belly as oppose to acid reflux. Yet, I worry about acid reflux....could that be the problem? How do you differentiate between reflux and gas pains (or just normal fussiness). She never spits up (although I have read there is such a thing as "silent reflux" which doesn't require spitting up), she never refuses to eat, she sleeps just fine...........what symptoms should I be looking out for that may indicate this is in fact reflux? I would hate to call the pedi and assume the problem is reflux and then have to put her on medication she doesn't need.....PLEASE HELP!
Re: Does my infant have acid reflux?
DS had silent reflux. It was characterized by hours in the evening of screaming and when I would try to feed him he would take a few swallows then arch his back and scream and shake his head and refuse to eat more. We would repeat that every 20 minutes or so. We put him on Zantac at 2 months old and he was a new baby within 3 days. Once it was diagnosed I watched him closely and could actually see his mouth fill with spit-up and hyphen he would swallow it back down.
DD has an appointment in 30 minutes to talk about reflux. She has all of the above except hers is classic reflux and she spits up all the time.
Hmmm.....I have never had my daughter refuse to eat. She does have her "fussy" time in the evenings when she crys a lot. But she will always eat. And I can't say as though I have noticed her mouth fill up with spit-up either but I will pay closer attention now to see if that is something I can catch.
Its so difficult to diagnose the problem and that makes things so frustrating. I hate to see her in discomfort and not be able to help. I just really want to find a solution to this problem ASAP so she can be a happy baby:). We are going to try Mycolin drops to see if that helps with the gas issue. If we see a big improvement then obviously the problem was gas. If not, then maybe we need to talk reflux with the dr.
Colic Calm (which helps with gas, reflux and colic) has a bunch of articles on their site which may help you out:
reflux:
https://www.coliccalm.com/baby_infant_newborn_articles/acid-reflux.htm
gas:
https://www.coliccalm.com/baby_infant_newborn_articles/gas_problems_treatment.htm
Good luck!
I just got back from meeting with my lactation consultant. We think LO has acid reflux. She spits up most feedings, but doesn't refuse to eat. I was worried about supply because she cried all the time and would suck really hard. I was afraid she wasn't getting enough, but that is not an issue. She also arches her back and stretches her neck when we are burping her. Those are suppose to be classic signs. She always spits up when she is in her car seat and sometimes it takes forever to get a burp out of her and she gets hiccups a lot. We are meeting with our ped Thursday and will bring this up.
I was told to bf LO with her head elevated by a pillow and keep her upright as much as possible. We give LO a paci becuase she had one in the NICU and doesn't have a problem with nipple confusion. The sucking is suppose to keep out extra air and help get gas out. It is one of the things that soothes LO. You can also let them just suckle at your breast, but LO has a hard suck and my breasts don't like that. Hope some of these techniques work. I'm on a no dairy diet now, so I hope it's just gas for your LO.
Me 36 DH 39
BFP 11/28/14 ~ MMC 12/29/14
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