When my eldest daughter was 6 weeks old I decided to stop breatsfeeding and start her with baby milk. This was due to a variety of reasons, but what I hadn't expected was that my daughter would have severe reflux and in the end be hospitialised because of - but thats another story! After speaking to our health visitor, we were asked to try SMA Staydown to see if it helped. It did! I went from being sicked on after every bottle (and a full bottles worth!) to a few sicky burps here and there. Brilliant! Well no not quite! SMA Staydown is actually extremely hard to get hold off. I found it in my local Boots but they were only ordering 6 tins at a time, and after I was taking 3 of them at a time, it soon became apparant that I wouldn't readily be able to get hold of this every time I went. I tried asking Boots to order us some, but with orders being delivered to stores up to 14 days later it just wasn't practical. We also tried ordering online but it was constantly saying out of stock.

In the meantime my daughter had been put under the care of a specialist team at our local hospital where would visit once a fortnight for weigh ins and after explaining my problems of getting hold of SMA Staydown to them, they gave me a prescription for the NHS equivilant! Brilliant, as under 16s get prescriptions free! Apart from the obvious trauma we were going through of being told they were going to have to operate on my 6 month old daughter, this was a turn up for the books!

While we were only using SMA Staydown for a few short weeks, I would have to say that this product is very good, given the extreme case of reflux my daughter was suffering from. For those of you who have not heard of reflux or are unsure if your little one is suffering from it, I shall briefly explain. Reflux is a condition where the stomach contents come back up into the gullet or mouth. The correct name for reflux is gastro-oesophageal reflux disease. The diaphragm at the back of the throat seperating the chest cavity from the abdominal cavity, acts like a valve which only opens downwards to let food or fluids pass, however young babies can sometimes be born with this valve not yet developed properly and so it opens both ways, and fluids such as milk are unable to stay down. Reflux can have many different sevreties, some of which are mild forms of sickness and some extreme cases can need operating on as in the case of my daughter. Reflux can be an extremely upsetting time (as I can vouch for!), as babies are getting all their nutritional content from milk and so if this is taken away through vomiting, they loose weight. My daughter actually dropped off the charts where weight is recorded - very scary! She is now a healthy (but tiny!) 3 year old, and all the worries of reflux seem far away - however, if this is something you are currently going through, I would recommend you to switch to SMA Staydown immediately until you can get your little one under professional care.

The other disadvantage of SMA Staydown is its price. At £7.99 a tin, most mums will realise that at 2 tins a week, this is going to work out very costly. For your poorly baby though - its definately worth it!

Important information (taken from SMAs website): As SMA Staydown has a precooked corn starch added, it is not possible to make up Staydown with water at 70oC. The Department of Health is aware of this. It is recommended that it is made up using strict hygiene conditions, by practising good handwashing and sterilising techniques, the introduction of bacteria will then be minimised. It is recommended that if possible each feed is made up individually with refrigerated water when required.

SMA Staydown works if you can get hold of it!