9 mth old boy - excessive wind since birth, now 9 mths old and getting worse - sorry a long one

[emmx]

Since my DS was born 9 mths ago he has had problems with feeding and suffered from lots of tummy pain and wind. I was given pethedine in labour and he was born by ECS. He never learned to latch on and I have a theory that it was to do with the pethidine and c-section.

Anyway, from his first week he has been on formula milk and has always suffered from tummy pain, lots of wind and constipation. He's tried different brands of formula and we've finally settled on Aptamil. The constipation improved when I started him on solids but the wind and tummy pain (particularly at night) has not and if anything has got worse.

He has one early morning and one night feed now at 10pm and its at the stage now where it can take up to 2 hrs to get all the wind out of him afterwards. We will spend ages getting his tummy to go flat thinking all the wind has gone, put him into bed and five mins later he'll be groaning and moaning again and when we go and check on him his tummy is rock solid with wind again. Even hours later he wakes up crying and making this awful groaning noise because he's got more wind. This means I never get more than an hour or two of straight sleep.

I've been trying to get the HV to take notice since he was born but all I was told was that I wasn't giving him enough water to drink. He definitely drinks enough now - loads in fact because he loves drinking out of his beaker.

He does suffer during the day, but its not too bad because I guess he's moving around lots and this dislodges the wind, and doing things distracts him, but we can't take him downstairs to play for hours in the night!

We're at our wits end with lack of sleep and just don't know what to do. I'm not keen to take him to the doctor because of bad experiences when he was a few months old and got a Scalded Skin Syndrome infection where neither the GP or the Doctors at the hospital believed how ill he was and kept sending him home. In all he was hospitalised for over a month (in between sending him home 3 times!) before they finally sorted him out! I'm worried they'll send me away again telling me to 'relax' and not be so 'uptight' like they did last time.

Has anyone else gone through anything like this? What did they do to resolve it?

[emmx]

Sorry, forgot to also say that he has Dentinox in his bottles. I've tried Gripe Water and Infacol too and they didn't help.

[trixymalixy]

lactose intolerance is asociated with excess wind. perhaps you could try adding lactase drops (colief) or try the SMA lactose free formula o see if that helps a bit?

[trixymalixy]

Meant to say that if those help, you can get either on prescription.

[emmx]

Thanks trixymalixy - do you know how the lactase drops work?

[trixymalixy]

You just put a few drops in the bottle and leave it for a bit till the enzyme digests the lactose, I think?!?

I think it's pretty straight forward. You can buy them in most chemists.

If that doesn't help then it could possibly be a dairy intolerance, in which case you would have to try a specialist hypoalllergenic formula which your GP would have to prescribe.

[emmx]

Thanks Trixymalixy, sorry didn't make myself clear, I was wondering how the colief actually works? What is lactas and how does it workhelp?

[RunningOutOfIdeas]

Lactase is the enzyme your stomach produces to digest lactose in milk. Colief contains lactase. So by adding it to the bottle of formula, the lactose starts to be broken down. If lactose is not broken down or digested properly, the bacteria you naturally have in your gut digest the lactose instead. When bacteria digest lactose they produce lots of wind. You can buy Colief from a pharmacy - it costs about £10.

Another alternative would be to try soya formula. It has no lactose and no cows milk protein. It is not recommended for babies under 6 months, but would be OK for your DS. You can easily buy this and it is not much more expensive than ordinary formula. If your DS is much better on this (you would need to try it for at least 2 weeks), then you could see your GP and ask whether he recommends trying lactose free formula or hypoallergenic formula (cows milk protein broken down).

[emmx]

Great, thanks for explaining that : ) Very helpful. I'll give it a try!