Such a horrible condition! (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease)

Member Name: f1re_cr4cker

Product:	Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease
Date:	16/12/08 (47 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none!

Disadvantages: your baby can scream and scream and you'll be covered in puke!

Reflux- what a horrible condition! I'm writing this review based on my experience with my son when he was tiny. Reflux in laymans terms is when the spincter does not close properly and in a baby's case stomach acid and milk can then fly up being vomited out or and causin immense pain as well. There are larely 3 types of reflux:
Silent reflux- no vomiting, just acid flies up causing pain. There is is the kind when the baby will purely vomit but seem unbothered. Thirdly there is both when the baby is vomitin up its milk AND having the acid pain.

This is a common newborn condition but unfortunately very few health visitors, midwives and gps know very little about. Often it is just put down to "colic" when in fact if it was diagnosed properly it could be treated and everyone mum and baby included would be much happier! It can be often linked to lactose and milk protein intolerances but this is not always the case and was not in my son's. It can be worth if none of the solutions mentioned below are working to try a lactose free or milk or milk protein free formula or if you are breastfeeding to eliminate all dairy from your diary as contary to popular belief in some rare cases this can be taken on by your baby.

The most common symptons apart from the vomiting and screaming will be babies not putting on weight, fighing their feeds, being uncomfortable after a feed especially when being laid flat. I will just add also that breast milk is normally kept down better than formula when it comes to reflux babies but there are also easy digest formulas available now which are thicker HOWEVER personally I preffered using my normal formula with the natural milk thickener that I will tell you about later!

For minor reflux this can be eased by being kept upright after a feed generally as much as possible. Dummies are also shown to have helped some babies with this as well as swaddling.

However if your baby's reflux is far worse like my little boy's was then other options have to be looked at. My little boy from about 10 days old after every feed would pretty much vomit the whole lot back up. He would then scream in pain once I rememeber for 3 hours solid. The other awful thin about the situation is that often due to the vomiting your baby will then be hungry, want more milk and so the process starts again.

Initally my little boy was prescribed infant gaviscon which helps by creating a layer of foam on top of the stomach contents. This did a help a little with the vomiting but did very little for the pain. A few days later I got my son referred to a paediatrician at our hosptial who diagnosed infant reflux and prescribed him a drug called Ranitidine which lowers the amount of acid produced by the stomach. This medication I was told would have to be increased as he got older but hopefully with age he would also grow out of it. Instantly the ranitidine made a startling difference. My poor little boy no longer screamed in pain. However we still had the issue of projectile vomiting. After doing some research on the internet I was made aware of a product produced by Cow & Gate called Carobel. This has to be ordered from a chemist but can be got on prescription. It is a natural milk thickener that is wonderful and instantly stopped the vomiting hurray! You simply add it to formula and it makes the milk really thick which keeps it down. A similar product to Gavsicon but much more natural and effective!

Thankfully my son had grown out of this fully by 6-10months which I guess may not seem that long to many but believe me when you have a baby who is screaming and projectile vomiting it really is awful.

Summary: It might not be colic it might be reflux so read up!