Mmy 9 Month Old Is Having an Upper GI and Modified Barium Swallow Friday

My son had an upper gi at 4months. He did a Barium bottle not sure what your baby is going through but, basically this is what happened to us:
he was undressed down to his diaper we got to stay in the xray room with him and help position him and he drink his bottle. He was totally fine with all of it because he got a bottle. LOL Anyway, he drank and we positioned him and they took the xrays. We were in there for a total of 20 mins including undressing and dressing. Hope this helps. Good Luck.

the previous post pretty much explains it. my son had his when he was 15 months, he had never would take a bottle as a baby so he would not drink the stuff from a bottle either, so they fed it to him from a large syringe (no needle). overall not a bad procedure. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU REQUEST THAT THEY COVER HIS GENTIALS WITH A LEAD JACKET/COVERING, everyone else will be wearing one because it is a long x-ray that could affect later fertility. they make a little triangle just for this purpose.

Hey Laurie, My daughter just had her second bronchoscopy and GI scope and she is only 4 months. She was put under anesthesia for those. At three months she also had a barium swallow done and it was the easiest ever. It was performed at Phoenix Childrens. It was her first experience with a bottle and she smiled and ate happily the whole way. It only lasted about 10 minand she sat in a little chair. I fed her and it was fine. Good luck!! What are they looking for??

Hi Laurie - My daughter had to have an upper GI also. She was about 14 months old (which is a tough age for this kind of stuff)and it was not a good experience for us. Here's what I learned that I hope can help you. We had ours done at Banner Desert Childrens, if I had to do it again I would ONLY go to Phoenix Childrens Hospital. Take a bottle and some of your babies favorite juice. If worst omes to worst they will let you mix the barium with some juice. Do not let them strap your child in until the radioligist is in the room and ready to go. Ask them if you can give the barium 1st instead of during the procedure. They tried to force feed it to our daughter while she was on the xray table....that did not work out well!
Good luck!!! E.

Hi Laurie,

My daughter had this done over 11 years ago when she was just a couple months old so things may have changed but this is what we experienced. She was not aloud to have a bottle after a certain time at night (that was the hardest part because how do you explain to a baby why she is hungry but can't eat ) then they strapped her in what I call a straight jacket to hold her arms and legs still. The they gave her the Barium which she took like a piece of cake...poor baby was starving! It only lasted a few minutes (can't really remember) but that was it. It was so much easier than I anticipated. The only thing afterwards was she had a little reaction on her skin where the Barium dripped out of her mouth and it was red for most of the day but went away. Overall the experience was pleasant. They are not in pain at all!

M.

My daughter has paralyzed vocal cords so her first week of life was spent taking tests at St.Joe's.(Phx Children's Hospital is great too) one of the tests was a modified barium swallow. she had another one at 2 months. What they did was told me not to feed her for 4 hours then they strapped her into a car seat looking device. obviosly my daughter is much younger but my advice it to make sure he is hungry so he doesn't reject the bottle. Our procedures went smoothly.

My 2.5 year old just had an upper and lower Gi done and I was a nervous reck! He did not have a Barium swallow, I am not even sure what that is. It was over so quick! I cant believe how fast it was. I have to say the worst thing though was when he was waking up. If I was not warned ahead of time I would have been so scared by the way he acted. It was like he did not know who we were and just a crying zombie :( Broke my heart.
I hope it goes very quickly for you and your little baby.