Gas and wind - should mum change diet?

[Sandrine1982]

Hi everyone. We have a 5-week old who has always struggled with gas / trapped wind. She has been diagnosed with a tongue and a lip tie, which we're looking into (she's already had her tongue snipped), but I'm also looking at whether my diet could be having an effect. I've tried cutting out pulses and certain veg, but I must say I'm a big fan of certain fizzy beverages - sparkling mineral water, Appletizer and non-alcoholic beer. I do drink a fair amount of still water too, but the sparkling drinks give me such a craving that I struggle to eliminate them.

Do you think they might be a problem? Does carbon dioxide travel all the way to the breastfed baby??

Cheers !!

[Maltay]

I don't think so, i think gas in BF babies is more to do with latch? Has the HV given any advice? Otherwise see if there's a breastfeeding support group at the local surestart centre? When DD was 6 weeks old I still hadn't got the position quite right and didn't realise til I went there (she liked to lay on her back with just her head turned to the nipple) They're really good and gave better advice than the HV/midwives did x

[User478]

Food/drinks get absorbed through your digestive system into your blood stream then turned to milk. Little gas bubbles from fizzy pop could not possibly get through! (Ditto bits of broccoli or curry or whatever nonsense some old wives tale says)
Formula fed babies have gas, no one quizzes the cows on what they've been eating. ("Oh, I guess Bluebell swallowed a thistle")

Sometimes babies are gassy. It's much more likely to be a) just the stage they're at/way they are or b) latch/speed of delivery

We never worked out a good way to burp DD, she hasn't exploded yet.

[Harrysmummy246]

It's so much more likely to be gas due to poor latch as others said. Please don't deny yourself these things, keeping fed and watered with a newborn is hard enough!

From memory 5 weeks was when DS was insanely gassy and writhing around with it/ spitting up plenty. We did use infacol and a lot of attempts at burping but he grew out of needing it by 3 months when he was a bit stronger and had figured out his digestive system a bit more.

[Creas35]

My DD was the same and we used gripe water which seemed to help, only needed it for a month, as she got bigger it got easier for her to burp it out. I also used do some baby massage on her to release some gas.