Understanding and Treating Infant Acid Reflux
January 8, 2010 by admin
Filed under Acid Reflux Information
No matter how common it may be, parents are never prepared when their new born baby begins to suffer from acid reflux.
Their infant is in misery. The baby is starving because it cannot hold down food, in pain from the burn, and they are tired from burping up all night long.
The worse the baby feels, the more helpless the parents are. Having a newborn is hard enough, much less facing infant acid reflux symptoms.
The best way to make get your baby healthy and start enjoying this precious time is to learn more about infant heartburn and how to treat it.
What is GERD?
Pediatric gastroesophagael reflux disease, or GERD, is the most common form of infant heartburn and digestive problems. The mouth is connected to the stomach through a long tube called the esophagus. Food travels through the esophagus to the stomach.
At the bottom of the esophagus is the lower esophageal sphincter, or LES. The LES is a muscle that seals the esophagus. The LES has several functions.
It opens when you must vent gas, or burp. It stays sealed so air can travel from your mouth into your lungs. Most importantly, after swallowing the LES stays sealed to prevent stomach contents from moving back upward toward the mouth.
When the LES fails, stomach acid, partially digested food, and bile can enter the esophagus. This agitation gives you the familiar burning sensation.
The more fluid entering the esophagus, the greater the heartburn pain will be.
Infant acid reflux occurs in almost half of all babies within the first months of their lives. This is because their tiny LES does not have the strength to stay sealed properly.
Furthermore, their tiny stomachs and new digestive tracks are producing more gas than normal. This gas must be expelled and your baby’s loud, explosive burps are literally bursting open the esophagus which weakens the LES.
Symptoms
At first, you will probably not know what is wrong with your baby. Acid reflux infants often get confused with other conditions.
The first time your baby stays up crying, you may think she caught a cold when you went shopping the day before. When your baby starts spitting up after meals, you may think you gave him too much formula at bedtime.
Once the condition lingers for more than a day or two, or seems to recur several times a week, it is time to start looking for a serious diagnosis.
While it is always best to check with a doctor anytime your newborn is not acting normal, here are some classic GERD symptoms to look out for:
Spitting up and vomiting
Coughing, especially after feeding or vomiting
Irritability
Poor feeding
In a small portion of infants, GERD can have more serious symptoms. Blood in stools, a complete refusal to feed, dehydration, and breathing problems can all be a sign of advanced GERD.
When these symptoms show up, it is time to take action quick. These advanced symptoms mean that the esophagus is heavily damaged, bleeding, and not able to close fully to allow proper breathing.
Treating the Problem
Acid reflux and infants is a difficult combination. In you were treating an adult, it would be much simpler. You would use some pills and make some diet changes to solve the problem.
Unfortunately, an infant cannot take a pill and their diet is strictly breast milk or formula. Fortunately, there are ways to treat your baby’s GERD and get back to enjoying your new family.
Your Doctor’s Help
It is always a good idea to see a doctor anytime you are wondering about your baby’s health. Your doctor will definitely want to see your baby if the severe symptoms of GERD have shown up.
However, the doctor can also offer you some medications to make sure the GERD does not progress that far.
Typically, your pediatric doctor is going to prescribe a kid friendly anti-acid. It will be more like an extended release acid controller instead of the pills that quickly reduce stomach acid.
This is essentially your doctor’s arsenal, to reduce the acid which is causing the pain and damaging the esophagus.
While these prescriptions do help some, even your doctor does not want to use them as a permanent antidote. It is never a good idea to give infants medicine.
Their young bodies cannot metabolize and mediate prescription drugs the way an adult can. Furthermore, you can never be sure of the lingering affects of any medicine given to a baby.
Therefore, it is very likely your doctor will also suggest more natural ways to treat your baby’s acid reflux.
A Diet Change
At this point, it is important to remind you that reducing acid is not always a reliable solution for GERD. Too much acid is often not the problem.
Remember, the key to breaking down and digesting food is stomach acid. Without acid, the food will just sit in the stomach. If there is not enough acid, your baby is going to take longer to digest food and will produce excess gas.
All of this pressure is going to push on the LES, until it opens and pushes stomach contents painfully into the esophagus.
Knowing this, you should have two goals for treating your baby’s acid reflux. First, you will want to stop excess acid to prevent the burning sensation.
Secondly, you will want to help your baby more easily and quickly digest food to decrease stomach fullness and esophageal pressure.
No matter if your baby is breastfed or using formula, you can still modify your baby’s diet to help reduce the acid reflux. If you are breastfeeding, you should know that everything you eat goes into your infant’s body through the breastmilk.
If you are eating acidic foods, like french fries, chocolate, or tomatoes, your baby is eating those foods as well.
On the other hand, if you are eating alkaline, wholesome, easily digestible foods, you breastmilk will be soothing and easily digested.
If you are using formula, there are several different types to try. Soy based formulas are very nutritious, they restore a Ph balance to the stomach, and they are easily digested.
Other formulas, such as alimentum have very good success rates and are hypoallergenic.
A Wedge Pillow for Baby
For many infants, sleeping is when acid reflux is at its worst. It robs the baby, and the parents, of the precious sleep they need to function. The root cause of acid reflux while sleeping is the baby’s natural resting position.
The baby is place on their back, typically right after a feeding, and all of their stomach contents are being pushed straight down.
Since there is not a lot of room to maneuver inside an infant’s abdomen, the stomach contents will flow in the easiest direction, up the weak LES.
In this situation, it is best to let gravity help you out. For safety’s sake, doctors recommend a baby sleep on its back. This does not mean they cannot sleep with their head and chest elevated.
Wedge pillows are very popular with GERD patients because they elevate the esophagus over the stomach while lying in bed.
By doing this, the esophagus is no longer the easiest path and the stomach contents are more likely to continue on their natural, pain-free path downward.
Looking Ahead
In most cases, GERD will clear up by the time an infant is a year old. However, in some cases the child will continue to be plagued with acid reflux. This may last all the way until adulthood if it is left unchecked.
If you begin to suspect that your child is going to be a long-term acid reflux sufferer, then it may be time to make some big changes.
You do not want your child forced into a life of never fully enjoying activities and foods. You also do not want them relying on dangerous pills for the rest of their lives.
In this case, the e-book Heartburn No More will be of great help. This program takes a revolutionary approach to curing heartburn for good. It will teach you how to cleanse heartburn causing toxins from your child’s body.
You will learn how to keep and maintain a healthy Ph and hormonal balance. You will be taught how to help your child handle the agitating stress they encounter. Furthermore, you will learn the diet and lifestyle changes you need to make to teach your child how to stay GERD and heartburn free for the rest of their life.
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