We had premature twins boys that were born at 30 weeks gestation.
Both weighed about 2 pounds at birth. One (jon) was in the NICU for a month and had no health complications and the other (mike) got necrotising entrocolitis (NEC) and spent about 4 months in the NICU and had 3 surguries!
After about 3 months at home and a first round of vaccines, Jon refused to drink milk. We brought him to our pediatrician who suspected silent reflux and prescribed zantac. After 1 month on the medication, feeding was still very difficult. We relied om nighttime “dreamfeeding” for Jon to get his daily requirements. Then Jon completely refused to drink again. We went back to the doctor but got brushed off. We were told he was gaining weight and that we should just wait it out…they increased the zantac dose again…
Two days later, we had to call 911 because jon was having episodes of loosing consciousness after drinking milk. It took a week of hospitalisation and multiple tests to diagnose laryngospasms caused by silent reflux.
We tried every PPI- all worked for about a week then led to vomiting and abdominal cramps. We also tries domperidone as a prokinetic which made the laryngospasm episodes worse! Our last option: nexxium. Thank goodness – it worked. we switched to a pre-digested hypoallergenic formula (Alimentum)
Our feeding specialist also prescribed cyproheptidine as an appetite stimulant with prokinetic effect. This has done wonders for jon’s vomiting and willingness to drink & eat. The boys are 9 months now and we are still waitng for Jon to outgrow this reflux but at least it is now managed with the proper medications.
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