Colic or GER in Breastfed Baby

I had the same problem with my son who is now 4mths. I gave up dairy and soy. It is found if they are sensitive to dairy that they can be sensitive to soy as well. It takes a good month before you will see a difference. You might want to try an elimination diet to see. It is hard at first but it gets easier. Good luck

N.:

I am sorry that you are having these problems. If your baby has GER malaax will sooth the irritation -just as it would for you if you had heartburn.

It would help if you can find the cause of the GER/ removing dairy is a good start but to do so effectively is not easy there is hidden dairy in a lot of foods. Total clearance from your system is about 4 weeks.

You might consider talking to or seeing a lactation consultant to help sort through this.

P., RLC, IBCLC
Pres. Lactation Support Group, Inc
www.lactationsupportgroup.com

No one knows for sure the side effects of such meds b/c testing has never been done on the age group. Our 1st daughter had reflux and had the same type of crying spells, but ours were from 2am til 6am, it was great! Not to mention the none stop puking!! Our Dr. said she would prescribe such meds to us if we wanted but our daughter was growing and thriving and the meds would be more for us than her. We decided not to give them to her and as time went on her puking and crying spells decreased and by 9 mo were almost gone. She is 3 now and still pukes so easily! But she did get over it and we all survived. Good Luck

It sounds like classic food sensitivities to me. I would try an elimination diet for yourself to see what is causing his discomfort -dairy, wheat, soy, nuts and eggs are common offenders. You can also have his tested for allergies, but this requires a blood test so most mama's are happy to simply eliminate offending foods from their diet. There are ALWAYS side effects to medications - Why medicate him when you can solve the problem? A lactation consultant or La leche leader would probably be more knowledgeable about this than your pediatrician.
Good luck!

I would recommend you go to www.babycenter.com and sign up for a free account. There is SO MUCH helpful information about our babies in there. It will help to keep you a littl less crazy when something 'new' happens!

Good Luck!

Hi N.,

Wanted to respond as I've had a similar experience with my 2nd daughter who is now 7 months old. When she was about 5 weeks old she had horrible eczema on her face and huge amounts of gas. I also went off dairy and it helped a ton. Eczema cleared up and the pain associated with all the gas went away. She continued to have lots of gas but it was much better. If you're off dairy completely you have to watch out for anything with whey or casien in it too, just in case you didn't know that. My daughter is also exclusively breastfed. She had horrible smelling poops and smelly gas too, which is shouldn't have. breastfed baby poo doesn't really smell, or it's not supposed to!

For relief the best thing I found for her was a product called Colic Calm. You can find it online and maybe at whole foods. it's a gripe water, all natural, but also includes activated charcoal which binds to the excess gas and neutralizes it. Since the gas never completely went away I tried going off wheat and soy, which didn't help and then I had her tested with an allergist and she was negative for all major food allergies, including milk. so...I took her to a pediatric gastroenterologist who tested her stool for blood, also negative. Basically she told me excess gas is difficult to diagnose.

Periodically i would add dairy in to see if the symptoms would go away but they always came back. Then a few weeks ago we went to Jamaica for a week at an all-inclusive with the girls and almost immediately I accidently had dairy. She was fine the whole week. I had dairy every day there. I was so happy the special diet was over and then we got back to the states and I had milk and the symptoms started up again. The only thing I could figure was it was the growth hormones they gives cows in this country so they produce more milk and are bigger. So last week I went and got hormone free organic milk and she's had no symptoms at all. I'm relieved that I finally figured out what it was but it is a bit frustrating that it took going to another country to figure it out! So now i'm just being careful with the type of dairy I ingest and so far so good.

Sorry...long story and who knows if your situation is similar. I just wanted to share my experience and give some ideas and support. I found that I had to continue to push my pediatrician with this. I knew something was not right but because she was thriving and didn't have blood in her stool (a sure sign of an allergy) they didn't find it to be a major concern. I guess I would just trust your instincts.

I have also had some friends whose baby had GERD and they did eventually outgrow it. They found that if they kept the baby's head elevated, even when sleeping that it helped. Prilosec was a wonder drug for them.

Best of luck to you in figuring this out and congratulations on your new son.

J.

My son went through the same thing. We tried alot of things, but very little worked. Basically we decided it wasn't tummy trouble, because he was breast fed, I was dairy free from day one, and none of the tummy meds worked. Our biggest cure was time. Aeround six months old, he stopped the witching hour cries, growing out of it. He is now 14 months old and certainly much easier!

There are no negative side effects with giving maloxx or prilosec to a baby. (I am a RN) The MD might even prescribe Zantac. Do you have your baby sitting upright after feedings? It is recommended that if a baby is having reflux to keep their head elevated for at least 1 hour post feeding. Also if the baby has to lay down, place them on their left side. (this helps promote digestion.)

Hi N.,
my 4 1/2 month daughter just started taking prilosec about 2 weeks ago. The doctor said it can take 1 to 2 wks to work. She had the same problems as your baby, but was colicky, then got better, but then got really bad again, where you couldn't even put her down. She would arch her back and choke and then cry in pain. The doctor diagnosed her with reflux, and put her on the prilosec, then we had to switch her back to soy. So, yes the dairy may aggravate it. There have been no side effects from the prilosec so far, and we've gone back and forth with going from regular formula to soy. The soy seems to do the trick. I'm using nestle good start soy. Since she's been on the soy again and taking the prilosec, she is a completely different baby. Very happy and hardly ever fusses. I'm beginning to think she's had reflux all along and it just got worse before we really thought anything of it! She would always arch her back and look like she was choking when burping, with pain, so i think we figured it out finally! Good luck! If you just started the medicine, give it time to work, and when it does, enjoy!!!

N., Our preemie little girl also had GERD and was diagnosed at 8 weeks....I have never heard of using Malaax- is there even an infant version of that? We used pepcid/banana flavor actually and it worked to reduce the acid in the stomach. None of the meds are guaranteed to stop the spitting up but do reduce the acid level in the stomach so that the throat is not damaged. I would read one of the American Academy of Peds books to verify the symptoms you are describing. And if want to know about the negative side effects of the meds, call the poison control for Illinois or ask your pharmacist. But actually symptoms of GERD do vary but common ones are arching the back after a feeding or even within a reasonable time period after a feeding...(we didn't think it was GERD unless we saw spit-up but were wrong) or seemingly uncomfortable during a feeding. We also started holding her vertically for 15 minutes after each feeding before putting her to sleep and that worked wonders. Which can make for a long feeding so my husband jumped in for the vertical time. You could try elevating the head of the crib with some towels if your little guy isn't moving around the crib too much yet. That also helped until she could roll and then it was pointless. Some people do the sleeping in the car seat thing which can work but our girl did not like that besides I really didn't want to rely on that too much for the later transition to the crib. And finally, you could always go see a Ped GI if it persists. I eliminated all kinds of foods with nursing and it didn't work because she did have GERD but being vigilant about your diet does make it easier on the baby regardless. Good luck- hope this helps.
M.

This is a very old remedy but it works. I have three children my second one was very colicy. My grandmother would tell me to put some baking soda on her tonge not a lot of course because it breaks down gas and to lay her on her stomach and cares her back for a few minutes so she a releave herself. My daughter had colic for a couple of weeks.

First, I would trust your doctors opinion...I am sure that it is safe for the baby to take those things otherwise he would not have told you to try them....IMO I would try to use formula...if you think it might be a milk allergy or that dairy is too much for his stomach try a soy formula...you may notice a difference. Also, if he is crying when he is laying down try to keep him elevated even when sleeping. It is a good idea to keep him upright for about a half hour after he eats as well...one more thing-not sure if you are pumping and then using a bottle or what but you may want to try a different bottle...I LOVE Dr. Browns-my twins had reflux really bad and those were the only bottles that they could use and be okay with. Good luck!

My son was exclusively breastfed and had the same symptoms with spitting up often. Since I have GERD I tried the same things that are effective for me. I do not eat chocolate, anything with caffeine, peppermint, or fried foods. Sleeping on an incline in the aquarium cradle swing (turned off) did wonders for my son.

My augher jusdt had a baby 3 months ago and he to was crying alot. After visiting the Dr.and found he had colic.(very gassy)
She researched his symptoms and decided to to buy Gripe Water and mylicon drops. They worked, ehe only side affect from the gripe water was that he had looser stools for awhile.They both can be given together.
he's now 3 months and just a happy go lucky baby always smiling.
Gripe water and mylicon drops can be bought at Babies R us.
He still has gas and we still give him mylicon drops after his bottle.
C.

A good way to test out if they have GERD is to give a little Malaax and see if the crying stops. My daugher was born 5 weeks early and had GERD also. She was on Zantac and Reglan. It went away by the time she was 6 months old.