Reflux - Bend, OR

I had the very same problem with my son when he was born. He is 10 months now, and still seems to have a little reflux. Since I wanted to avoid putting my baby on reflux medicine I talked to the pediatrician about other possible remedies. Since I was also breastfeeding, she recommended cutting out a lot of foods such as all dairy, eggs, nuts, and spicy foods. Although it was hard for me, it seemed to make a huge difference for my son.

My youngest child had that. Sometimes it can be scary ehen they choke on there throw up. But dont worry unless she losses weight. I had to reduce the amount my doughter ate in one sitting. I did give her more meals just less at a time. It really helped. Also to let you know they do grow out of it. My daughter grew out of it by 1.5.

Are you getting all of the burps out of her? Babies cannot process air or burp on their own so it takes them time to work the air buble through their system, and it could come out at either end, if it is the mouth it is a burp with spit up and a fart out the back end. Don't let her body squish right after a feeding because that will just trap any air worse. You have to work on getting those burps even if it takes a while. My daughter was a very hard baby to burp so I know.

I have a ten week old baby that is doing the same thing, its like he is spitting up his entire feeding. I asked my doc and he said it should pass and to not be concerned. As far as the smell goes, everyones stomach contains acids to breack down and digest food, if her spit up smells its probably due to it combining with those digestive acids. Especially if she is spitting it up hours after she has eaten its probably not gonna smell that great since its been sitting in there for awhile. I hope it gets better for both our babies

I would check food allergies. Try cutting out dairy out of your diet and see if anything changes. Then switch to soy. Then if things still haven't changed, try wheat. This is often a food intolerance.

My daughter had major issues with spitting up as well. Sorry this may sound gross, but the longer it was after eating the chunkier it got.

At 16 mths she still occasionally does. My ped always said as long as she is gaining weight it wasn't too big of an issue. We had her on Prilosec (sp?) for a while, but it didn't seem to help much, and it was a major struggle to get her to take it. We made the decision to stop giving it to her. She never seemed to be too bothered by it.

I think the smell comes with age. As she got older, it started to smell.

Hi, both of my boys spit up a ton for about the firs 6 months or so. One was breastfed and one was bottle fed breast milk. I think it is normal, but I have some friends who have tried feeding their baby a little less at a time and that helped with the spitting up.

Both of my babies spit up a lot. The doctor told me as long as they were gaining weight not to worry.

I had a son with severe reflux and another baby girl I fostered that had severe reflux due to a drug addition. What works really well is feed them on their left side that way the food gets further into their stomach. On the right side is closer to the opening from their esophagus and more likely for food to come back up and the key is to feed them very slowly and burp often. try these techiques it should improve his spitting up. Also the longer the food sits in his stomach the more it will be curtled and smell. that is normal.

breast milk, if left to sit in ones tummy for hours could start to have an odor. my daughter had reflux for the first 10 months. we had her on meds. but i would only reccommend that if it is really necessary. www.thebabywhisperer.com is a great moms sit. if you click on "boards" then scrool down the bottom a medical needs thread. click on that and then click on the one for reflux. lots of info there.

Hi J.,

My son spit up A LOT for the first 5 months of his life. He was solely breastfed too, and it sometimes had an odor and sometimes it didn't. For us, it was more annoying than anything, but it didn't seem to bother him a bit. We just kept him in bibs all the time, so we didn't have to change his shirt multiple times a day. It's easier to change a bib than a shirt.

D.

My daughter was exclusively breastfed up until she started solids about a month ago. When she was tiny, like your babe is now, she would throw up the chunky smelly stuff every so often, and I too was concerned because it was different that her normal, occasional spit ups. i realized it was happening after I was overfeeding her. In the first few months I didn't realize how much milk i was producing. in the hospital they told me to give her one breast and then burp her and offer the other. I realized if feed her on both sides, a little while after the feeding she would have one of the throw ups. I began feeding her only one breast at a feeding and it stopped. Once she got to be about 3.5 to 4 months I could just let her take as much as she wanted. It seems by then her tummy was bigger and she had the idea of fullness figured out. hope this helps!

Hi, I just saw an EXTREME case of reflux and throwing up on tv and it was due to a hernia in a child's diaphram where the stomach was actually up in the chest cavity from the hernia (tear in the chest membrane.) It's probably just reflux but you might push them to get an x-ray just in case. Don't mean to panic you or anything though but i know it's horrible to not know why our child might be sick or suffering and my dad always says, "it's better to be safe than sorry." I'll be praying that your baby feels better.
C. M.
ps, you might not want to eat dairy as well. Sometimes dairy if they mom eats it causes that stinky smell in the baby's spit up and sometimes they have a harder time digesting the lactose proteins.

Oh my goodness, YES I can relate. My little guy is 3 months old and I am sad to tell you this, but he has not "outgrown" it yet. The doctor keeps telling me that he is fine (weight-wise and growth-wise) and that he will outgrow it. It began for him when he was 2 weeks old. I, too, am breastfeeding... and yes, my milk in the form of spit up comes along with a smell also! Nothing wrong with you there! I have just noticed and finally accepted that my shoulder pretty much always carries "that smell" right now!

I have always been concerned about the AMOUNT of spit up! It really seems like the entire meal to me, just about every single time. Other times it is less, there is almost NEVER ONLY a dry burp. *sigh* I have joked that I could seriously catch the spit up in a bottle and feed to him later. It just really seems like so much! And yes, sometimes it is immediately which looks like nothing more than pure milk. Sometimes it is within ten minutes or so, and has a bit of a mucous look to it, and other times it looks curdled... and if it is an hour or two or three later, it can even look like water!

Just know that this too will pass! Waiting and wondering when is annoying, but I've never seen toddlers who spit up all the time, hehe! The doctor must be right, they will eventually outgrow it, I suppose! In the meantime, enjoy breastfeeding, and look forward to the precious smiles, they are coming if your baby hasn't already rewarded you with some!!

Kim

Both of my kids had reflux, my daughter was considered a silent refluxer (no spit up), and my son spit up constantly. When my daughter was finally diagnosed at about 2 months, they put her on Zantac and it helped for awhile, but she learned how to spit it out because it was awful tasting. They switched her to Prevacid and that actually helped a little more than the other. She was supposed to grow out of it by about a year and at 20 months she was still having trouble. She had learned to only take in about 2 ounces at a time while nursing and nursed very frequently.

I finally took her to a Naturopath and she put her on a probiotic (Bifidus) and Glutamine. That helped almost immediately.

When my son was born and he started having trouble right away, I took him to the naturopath and at 2 weeks he was finger-fed Bifidus (he sucked it off of my finger or nipple) and I saw huge improvement right away with his spitting up and discomfort after eating.

I suggest trying a naturopath or more natural medicine to start with and if that doesn't seem to help, then go to the prescription meds.

By the way, the prescriptions only treat the symptoms and don't get at the cause. This causes the body to not be able to act as efficiently with the nutrients going in.

If you are in need of a naturopath that specializes in children, I'd be happy to pass on information. Dr. Lori is great.

Good luck.
D.

I went through the same thing with my daughter. I too breastfed her and sometimes her spitup would stink, no worries. Our Dr put her on meds and it helped soooo much. This is very common in bottle and beastfed babies. All it is is the digestive system isnt fully developed. Most babies outgrow this by the time they are 1. Though my little one still has problems with acid reflux sometimes, just like her mommy.

You might be interested in looking into your little one wearing a hazelwood necklace.
My friend's son had BAD reflux and was on meds for it (as a newborn). Her mom told her about these necklaces so she gave it a try. She says it basically took away his painful reflux. She was able to take him off meds after 2 weeks of him wearing it.
Anyway, she told me about them because my daughter has had eczema since she was 3 months and nothing was really helping (these necklaces help with a variety of issues from teething pain, to eczema, to reflux). Since she has been wearing it (over a year now) she hardly has any breakouts at all. They work by absorbing excess acid in the body (the wood has that natural property).
You can find them at www.hazelaid.com
They're really cute too & safe for babies to wear because the clasp is made special.
Hope it helps.

Hi J.,

I have read a lot of great responses to your question! I know that with my son we experienced what seemed to be an abnormal amount of spit up and reflux, these other moms are totally accurate about smell and texture having to do with digestive enzymes in both the stomach and saliva so don't be too concerned with that. However with my son his weight started to drop and he became agitated with each feeding (opposite of your daughter). When I addressed this with his doctor, she suggested an allergy panel. With a simple blood draw he was tested for numerous allergies, we found he had allergic reactions to dairy, egg yolk and egg white. After cutting those from my diet it was smooth sailing.
I hope for you it isn't anything more than a little air in your daughter's belly. Good luck!

- K.

Hi J.,
My little guy, Cole, has been quite the spitter too. His doc wasn't concerned because he never seemed unfomfortable and he was gaining weight above average. One thing we did change is to have him sleep in his car seat rather than lay flat in his pack-n-play because we realized he was laying in a circle of spit-up during the night. Even though I would burp him before laying him down, he would spit up a couple hours after eating. As far as the smell, I notice a bit of a sour-milk smell with his spit-up, and I am also breastfeeding. Now, at 3 months old, Cole's spit-up seems to be decreasing, so now I am trying to get him used to laying flat.
~J.

Hi J.,

I had the same thing with my second son. It turned out that we both had a dairy sensitivity that was causing his reflux. (He wasn't sensitive to my breastmilk, just the dairy that I was consuming that ended up in my breaksmilk.) My son will be 2 in a few weeks, and even now, if I give him more than just a small amount of dairy, he'll have reflux. My sister's older daughter also had reflux and it turned out her daughter had an egg allergy. I would not suggest doing an allergy/food sensitivity test on your daughter this young - but you might want to try cutting high allergen foods out of your diet for a week or so (one at a time) and see if that makes any difference. There is medication for reflux as well, which I'm not a big fan of, especially for little little ones, but in some cases it might be necessary.

Another note to keep in mind with reflux is to be careful when your child gets teeth. Both my boys got teeth really early (at 3 months), and with my second son's reflux, he ended up getting several really bad cavities right away. (The stomach acid that comes up with reflux quickly eats away at the teeth enamal.) If your daughter gets teeth while she's still having reflux issues, I would suggest trying to brush her teeth (tooth) with a baby toothbrush as soon as you can afterwards to get any stomach acid off of the teeth. You may want to consider taking her to a pediatric dentist at that point too, to make sure her teeth are holding up ok. They can put a treatment on the teeth that help them strengthen, which isn't a permanent fix, but it can help. Many people think kids don't need to see a dentist until they're older, but it really should happen as soon as they start getting teeth. There are many great Pediatric Dentists out there too. I'm not sure where you live, but I really like ours (Kirkland Children's Dentistry). They're really great with kids of all ages and make it as fun of an experience as possible. I've heard of many great Pediatric Dentists though, so I'm sure where ever you live, you'll find a good one. You can always ask for recommendations on here. :o)

Best of luck to you and your daughter!

Yes it could be reflux. To relieve your baby from spitting up, try babies magic tea. It helped me very much when my baby had the same issue.

There is the tale that breast-fed babies have odorless bowel movements as well.... Once the milk has hit the stomach where it is mixed with stomach acid, all bets are off. There is an odor. Your doctor is right about the reflux issues. I have a friend who's son had these problems for sometime, so she slept him in his infant seating, sitting at an incline, for some reason this helped to keep the food down. Also, make sure that you're burping her every few minutes while you nurse. That she's latching on well and not getting a lot of air while sucking. Also, watch what you're eating. Some foods that you eat will cause her indigestion, so spicy, gassy foods should be avoided as well as an overload on fresh fruits by you.

As long as she's gaining weight and doesn't seem to be in any pain, has good bowel movements and frequent wet diapers all is well.

Wish you all many happy days!!!

Sounds like my little man. He weighed 14 lb 4 oz at 3 weeks! And he spits up after almost every feeding, but not always right after the feeding. I've noticed that the longer he waits to spit up, the worse the milk smells. It just smells like digested milk. Let milk sour in your fridge and then smell it. The bacteria are digesting it, and that's why it smells. Smell kefir or yogurt--which are also digested milk--and you'll see what I mean.

So notice, or maybe make a chart, if you're so inclined, about what it looks like and how long it's been since she ate. You'll probably notice that it's chunkier after an hour or two, and runnier if she burps up right after eating. This makes sense. Milk curdles in acid, and the stomach has acid. If it smells sour, it's probably been an hour or two as well, since it's digesting.

My pediatrician said he burps up milk because he's getting too much. This makes sense, because he's so big, and my daughter, who was always at the bottom of the percentile, almost never burped up milk.

So personally, as long as she's gaining on her curve and isn't underweight, I wouldn't worry about it. I almost never had to burp my daughter, but now I leave burp cloths lying around the house so I don't have to go far to get one on short notice! I'll be glad when he gets past this stage!