Is this Reflux? Please help!

Hi,

My baby is 7 weeks old and definitely had the same symptoms when she was diagnosed with reflux. One of the reasons reflux babies want to eat all the time is because the milk helps to nuetralize the acid. My baby definitely did this and still does when she has really bad reflux.

Are you nursing or formula feeding? Because, there’s also growth spurts that I’ve read about at 2 weeks and 6 weeks where babies just want to nurse all the time, and Sophia definitely went thru those as well. You may be experiencing a combination of both reflux and a growth spurt. The best thing that worked for us during this time was to feed smaller meals, more frequently and burp like crazy. I definitely learned that the harder she screamed after eating, the more she really needed to burp. It’s so hard to keep at it when they’re screaming, but getting that gas out really does help with the reflux. At least for us anyway!

Good luck!

I’m sorry to hear this. It def sounds like reflux! Landen also ate like crazy in the beginning. I honestly knew there was something wrong with him in the hospital b/c he would never settle or calm down and sleep like a normal newborn, he made gurgling sounds (which I was told was just fluid that needed to clear out- whatever) and he nursed 24-7. There was only 1 nurse who thought it was odd. She would come in to check on me and one time she said “is he eating AGAIN?!…I swear, he hasn’t slept!” I told DH that I just knew something was up…your gut will tell you. Does it sound like she’s “swallowing air” or “gulping air” even when not eating. That was another thing Landen did. I’d hear him do it and for weeks I’d say, OMG he’s swallowing air! Not knowing he was silently refluxing and CHOKING on it.

reglan and zantac seem to be the first meds prescribed by peds, “Just Because.” It’s probably just what they were taught and that’s that. Jonah was even prescribed reglan in the nicu and they had DONE testing and they pretty much knew he didn’t have DGE. Personally, in retrospect, I think they gave it to him to cover their butts legally- he was having apnea episodes (stopped breathing) and rather than have a dead newborn on their hands, they figured the possible risks of reglan, and the help it MIGHT provide, sure outweighed the apnea episodes.

anyway, there’s a lot of bad hype about reglan, but it has worked wonders for some babies, with diagnosed/VERIFIED DGE, in small doses. as natalia wrote, there ARE other motility drugs out there such as bethanecol (sp?) and erythromyacin (sp?)…I feel that if a baby has been given the stomach emptying scan (this is not just an Upper GI- it’s a specific test looking for DGE) and doesn’t respond well to other drugs, then by all means trying reglan is worth it…

thanks for the head’s up- I did a search from the past year & earlier- here are some links: