Anybody with the weight gain problem?

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I’m an another frustrated parent with the reflux baby. Does it ever STOP????? My baby is 3 month and 1 week old. In the first months, she was wonderful!! She ate so well, so she gained 2 lb since she came back from the hospital.

Then, after she turned 1 month old, the nightmre began. At first, she would just eat too little in a day. She was eating 2 oz (of my expressed milk) every 3 hours. I figured it was not enough. I increased the amount, she would not take it. She finally started eating 3 oz every 3 hours since she was 2.5 months old. Since then, she does not eat more than 18.5-19 oz. Only once she had 20 oz.

At some point, it would take me 3 hours to feed her with the 3oz of milk. My dr finally prescribed Zantac. It seamed to help in the beginning. She still did not want to eat more than 19 oz, but she would be a lot more acceptive in taking the food. Many times I would have to rock her to sleep in order for me to feed her.

For the last 3 days, she is on the strike. She does not want to eate. For example, yesterday, until 5 pm (since midnight), she only ate 7oz of milk. She ate another 8 all at night (seams to be more hungry in the evening).

My main concern is her weight gain. She only gained 5oz within the last 15 days. Is there anybody else with the weight problem??? My daughter weights 11 lb and 5oz as ov yesterday.

[Anonymous]

Hello,
My son also has had weight problems. He was premature, so he started out small, but with all his spitting up he has always gained VERY slowly. Have you tried fortifying her milk? You’d probably want to talk to your doctor or a dietician, but that has really helped my son. Breastmilk (or formula) normally has 20 calories per ounce. To fortify it, you add powdered formula to the milk to increase the calorie count. My son is on 24 calorie breastmilk right now. He actually doesn’t tolerate formula at all, so we fortify it with either goat’s milk powder or rice cereal (we switched to the cereal when he was old enough to eat it). Anyway, this is one idea – so that if she doesn’t get enough milk down, at least the milk she does drink has more calories. Again, you’d have to talk to your doc or a dietician about it probably.

So what does your doctor say about her slow weight gain??
I think it would really help her to get on a PPI med like Prevacid. My son was on Zantac for awhile at first, and it helped a little, but the Prevacid really made a difference for him.

Well, good luck with everything! I hope you can find a solution.

[Anonymous]

My daughter sounds like your daughter in terms of eating habits. It’s so difficult. Hailey actually flat out refused to feed one day, and since then has needed her bottles fed to her while asleep. I agree that you should try a PPI medication like prevacid, or zegerid. She’s likely still having pain from the acid, which is why she eats poorly. Even when my dd was medicated she never went above 20 ounces… we rarely hit that mark actually. For the most part she had around 16 ounces (if we were lucky), and sometimes as low as 12-14. We were lucky though, as she seemed to gain weight despite this. s&h’s mum2006-8-26 8:45:52

[Anonymous]

Thank you for you suggestions! My doctor referred her to the GI ped. on Thursday.

I got a second opinion. My mom has a friend in NY, he is a pediatrition. He suggested the following things:

1. To try to give her formula instead of my milk. I feel sooooo guilty for not giving her breast milk. But I decided to experiment. I am expressing my milk (which I am doing anyway since she does not want to take my breast) and freezing it. I want to see if she will gain better weight in the next few days.

2. Have her seing by a GI doctor (which I was already referred by my pediatrician). Called yesterday, explained them my baby is not eating anything. They don’t care it is an urgent case. Gave me an appointment for Sept. 7th.

3. Have her seing by a cardiologist (anybody esle had this advise????). He said that studies show that it might be the very first signs of the heart condition if the baby gains poorly. My pediatritian is in the group of doctors, so when he is not available, other doctors check your child. My baby was seing by 3 different doctors. All of them listened to her. One of them actually specifically listened to her heart and said it was fine… Is it enough not to assume there might be a problem? I am going crazy here!!!!! My mom’s friend did not try to scare me. He just suggested to see a cardiologist to rule out any heart problems. At least he said that’s what he would do in my case.

How do kids with heart problems behave? How do the look like? My baby is very cheerful with a lot of energy (I do not know where she takes this energey with such poor eating habbits).

Anyway, it is a very difficult time for us.. And on top of everything, I have to go back to work in the beginning of September. Can’t quit. My husband does not have insurance at his work. I have insurance for myself and my two kids. Can’t afford for me to quit. I can’t immagine how my babisitter will be feeding her…..

Will appreciate all your comments!

[Anonymous]

Hello and welcome.

Has her doctor said that her weight gain is not adequate? If not, I wouldn’t be too concerned about how much she’s eating. My son rarely ate more than 15-18 ounces of EBM a day until he was about 7-8 months old. He gained fine on that little.

If her weight gain is not adequate, than fortifying is probably a good idea; but certainly ask her doctor first.

The biggest concern is that she is struggling with her feedings. That’s definitely one of the classic signs of untreated reflux and it will likely get worse if her pain is not controlled with proper meds. My first refluxer was on Zantac and she only got minimal results initially and then it stopped working for her. A common problem with H2 Blockers. PPI meds like Zegerid and Prevacid seem to be much better stopping the acid that causes all the pain. My son did great on Prevacid. Once he was on the right dose the painfully long feedings, fighting the bottle, and constant irritability stopped. However, he still only drank 15 – 18 ounces per day, but he drank it happily and without a fuss.

You can read more about PPI meds at http://www.marci-kids.com

Good luck and glad you found us.

[Anonymous]

And a few more things forgot to mention…

Her simptoms, why she was diagnosed with the reflux…

The very first thin I saw was strange (my sone was not doing it): she was arching. Then, she started refusing to eat. There were no other symtoms for her.

Now, on top of those two, she has a cough. It feels like her food is always on top: like she has her nose staffed.

No excessive spitting though. My pediatritian said not all reflux babies spit. But the acid is goin all the way up…

Thanks everyone for listening.

[Anonymous]

Sorry for righting so much.. Read an article about congenital heart problems, they are saying babies w/heart problems do not have strength to eat much. It looks like it is not a strength issue for her.And she is so active. Anyway, I am already freeking out…

[Anonymous]

Are her hands and feet cold at all? I think that could be a sign of a heart problem. I don’t really know of any others except maybe being lethargic like you said. My son had a heart problem, but he had open heart surgery to repair it right after he was born, so I never saw the symptoms he would have had. It doesn’t sound to me like that’s your dd’s problem. I bet she’s just uncomfortable from the acid in her throat. Couldn’t hurt to rule it out though.

[Anonymous]

I personally wouldn’t worry too much about a heart problem. It sounds like they just want to look into this to be cautious. A few of us have been told to see cardiologists just to be sure. My older daughter was actually born with a small hole in her heart, which they just found by accident, and it closed up by the time she was a year. The cardiologist told us that with all of the ultrasounds we now get prenatally, most heart defects are caught before the baby is actually born, or they tend to be very insignificant anomalies. So don’t worry yourself for nothing.

I’m not saying that you don’t have a reason to worry, but I doubt it’s heart issues. It sounds to me like your baby has pain from silent reflux, hence the feeding issues and the poor weight gain. The other symptoms you mention like stuffiness, coughing are also classic signs. I think it’s very important that your daughter gets her acid controlled so that she can eat properly. The best way to do this is with a good dose of PPI. There’s a good site about reflux (not sure if anyone’s posted it yet) http://www.marci-kids.com . You can read up on reflux so that you’re educated about symptoms and meds etc, that way you’ll be able to know if your doc is on the ball or not. Unfortunately, if reflux pain is not controlled in a baby with feeding problems, it can lead to a feeding aversion, like with my daughter, which is why it’s important to get her feeling better.

Your doctor might want to do some tests to make sure that there are no structural malformations as a cause of the reflux, some of us have had this done, not all. Does she have any other behaviours other than the arching while eating, like choking, pulling off etc.?

As for the doctor telling you to stop breastfeeding, I personally think that no doctor should tell someone to do this. It’s your decision if you want to breastfeed or not, and aside from the obvious benefits, because it’s digested faster, breastmilk might be better for some refluxers. It should be your choice, not your doctors, and so I’d make sure that this is what you want to do before doing it. Once you quit nursing and move to pumping only, it can be a great challenge to persist. I stopped nursing eventually because Hailey wouldn’t eat, and I always wished that I had been able to continue. You might want to try an elimination diet (you can read more about it in Laura’s intro) if you want to keep nursing but try to eliminate potential allergens. Sometimes formula fed babies try hypoallergenic fomulas like nutramigen or alimentum or neocate. But I’m not quite sure why your doc would tell you to stop BF and go to a regular formula. Anyhow, either way, it’s YOUR decision. But don’t think you can’t BF a refluxer…. IT’S NOT TRUE!

Anyhow, hope that all goes well with your appointment. It’s too bad they couldn’t get her in sooner. I’d ask to be put on the cancellation list. That’s what we always did. If it makes you feel any better, my daughter also wasn’t eating (at 6 months she was down to around 14 ounces and that was a struggle) and they made us wait almost 4 months to get in to see the specialist. So hang in there. September is just around the corner!

[Anonymous]

I agree with everyone that there is probably no reason to worry about a heart issue. However, I would definitely get it checked out. My sister was born with an atrial septal defect. She slept a lot, but other than that was a very active child. She didn’t have any other symptoms. In fact, she was more active than my brother and I ever were. That being said, Lori is right, with ultrasounds there is very little chance that she has a heart defect.

I don’t have much advice, but I can sympathize with you. Alexandra is also a very reluctant eater. She is on pepcid now and doing much better, but she still usually only takes in 15 to 18 ounces of formula a day. At her 2 month appointment she weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces. She’ll be 12 weeks on Monday and we think she is still less than 10 pounds. The doctor said that she is still gaining steadily, so he’s not worried about it. She was born 4 weeks early, but weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces at birth.

Zantac is very weight sensitive. The dosage needs to be increased with every weight gain in order to remain effective. Even then, babies often plateau on it.

[Anonymous]

I definitely agree to get it checked out, but try not to worry about it. My daughter’s was a tiny ventricular septal defect, and she was asymptomatic until it closed.

[Anonymous]

my baby had horrible weight gain with her reflux. she ate like a little piggy, but couldn’t keep enough down to gain adequately—-she was failure to thrive for most of her first two years.

[Anonymous]

Aidan went on a “hunger strike” at about that age, 7-8 oz a day for a week or 2..but his dr said that as long as he was not dehydrated, or loseing weihgt all was ok, and that he would increase his intake eventually, which he did, but he never ate more than 20 ounces and still at almost 9 months, he only eats 28ish ounces….I would be sure to cover all your bases, but just wanted to let you know I went through the same thing, and everything came out ok!

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