4 week old - Infant Care (up to 18 months old) Message Board

Amy 333 · 03-29-2009, 06:43 AM

My baby has been throwing up his milk after each feed for the past 2 weeks. Sometimes he throws up all the milk others only part of it.
At times it s projectile though not always. One day he seems slighlty better the next he s sick again.
I was bf though started giving him the odd bottle few days after birth.(i can only breast feed for 6 weeks as have to take meds after which are not safe during b/f)
however i tried b/f only for the last 5 days..thinking it might be some form of allery to the milk...though he still threw up.
We have been in and out of hospital ....i feared he might be dehydrated. we were discharged for the w/e have to go back in tomorrow.
They did an u/s from which they found that he has borderline pyloric stenosis though presently it is not severe enough to warrant surgery. They also mentioned reflux or gastro enteritis.
Any insight?

amy

dina08 · 03-29-2009, 08:02 AM

Oh...we lived through this. I would recommend getting to a pediatric GI doctor right away. If your baby has reflux, you might need medication. We did not know to do this right away and our baby ended up with a severe feeding aversion. The first medicine they will usually put the baby on is Zantac. I will warn you that it tastes awful. Some pharmacy's (my Walgreens here could) can flavor it for you. We went with grape flavor and it was still some trouble. So, then the pharmacist made it from scratch. When he does this, he does not put in the peppermint flavoring that babies hate. The reason that the peppermint is there in the original formula is because they put alcohol in the medicine and the only thing that covers up alcohol is peppermint. Anyhow, when the pharmacist did this, my daughter would take it. Zantac stopped working at a certain point (you have to keep increasing the dosage along with the weight of your child as they grow). Then, we switched to Prevacid. I can tell you the details of how to do that one if you end up needing it. It is now very easy to do. I wish you the best of luck and I have a lot of advice that I could give you if you need it.

Amy 333 · 03-29-2009, 11:01 AM

Dina thank you for your reply....i have often thought of you lately as i recall your posts re the prob.
Firstly how is your girl doing now? hope all s ok...

So how was the diagnosis done? Did they do any tests to confirm it was reflux? I have been to 2 peadiatric GI specialists...at 1st they thought it was pyloric stenosis so they focused on that...apparently this presents at 6 weeks so they are thinking it might be the prob. Values on u/s were borderline.

Did Lily throw up after every feed? Was it the whole lots or just spitting up?
Is the medication safe? Does it have any contraindications?

I just hate seeing my baby so uncomfortable seems like he s in pain after each feed.

Thank you.

Amy

WhiskersOnKittens · 03-29-2009, 10:52 PM

Hi Amy,

I'm so sorry to hear your little guy is having such troubles! Is he gaining weight alright?

Anyway, it could very likely be reflux, that was my first thought. But I wanted to let you know that sometimes an allergy of some kind (cow's milk is usually the main offender in lo's as far as allergies go) can cause reflux. Do you eat a lot of dairy? You can try cutting back or cutting it out all together for a week or so, and see if his condition continues. And although it generally takes a few weeks to leave the baby completely, you should see at least some improvement if this is the problem... Does it seem to be worse when he's drinking more formula, or is it the same whether your just breast feeding, or bottle feeding?

I hope he starts to feel better soon!

Whiskers

dina08 · 03-30-2009, 06:48 AM

Amy,

My baby threw up (projectile) after almost every bottle and sometimes in the middle of a feeding. It was awful. It got worse and worse. I forgot to tell you that one thing that might help before medication is to thicken the formula or breast milk (if you can express it and put it in a bottle). You can add rice cereal or oatmeal baby cereal. I'm not sure what it might be called in the UK. However, the rice is binding so it can constipate the baby. It did to my baby, so we gave her oatmeal which has the opposite effect and it worked great. If the thickening doesn't work, you can use the formula Enfamil AR (added rice). It works a little different. It's thick to begin with (you will probably need to use a different kind of nipple with a larger hole or you can take a paper clip and make the hole in the current nipples bigger). However, when this formula hits the stomach acid in the childs belly, the formula thickens even more. The idea is that it is harder to throw up a shake than water because it's thicker - gravity helps keep it down. We were on this formula until age 1 and it worked wonders.

No tests were done to figure out that she had reflux. The GI doctor knew it from asking us questions.