Reflux and vomiting - cranial osteopathy

[SA28]

I am a FTM (c-sec)and my baby is 7 weeks old and has very bad reflux and vomiting. Tried omiprazole but hasn’t helped with the vomiting. I am interested to know what people have done about this? She also has startled reflux as well and wakes up from sleep very often and struggle to go back to sleep. I have read that cranial osteopathy helps with all of the above? Has anyone tried cranial osteopathy?

Great, thank you. I will have to find a good osteopath now 😊

I have ruled the allergy thing out but removing all dairy products from my diet.

@SA28 soy too? Until we removed soy (and that means not eating out or having any takeaways as it seems every restaurant uses "vegetable oil" i.e. soybean oil), the reflux didn't stop. Most babies who react to dairy, also react to soy. And the slightest trace of butter or ghee in a meal triggered him and made him sick for days.

We were desperate to find something that worked for my baby (she was one a few weeks ago!) we even ended up in the children's ward a few times because it was so bad! Absolutely nothing worked, including the cranial osteopathy which was our last resort and I was gutted it didn't work (was also so expensive 😭) the only thing that slightly helped her was liquid omeprazole (not the tablets you dissolve), carobel in her milk and using only the pre made formula (again so expensive but she could not tolerate the powder and to this day we have no idea why! It annoyed the life out of me when people said it passed when all you want is for you baby not to be rithing about and constantly vomiting (also for your sake as well because what a toll it takes! The pnd was real!!) but it did eventually pass 😭🤣 she is 1 now and we've stopped everything and she's fine! We also swaddled until she grew out of the startle reflex! It did help x

If you are near London, i recommend the Osteopathic Centre for Children. They are a charity who run on a "pay what you can" basis and those who can afford to pay the full price subsidise those who cannot. It's staffed by private osteopaths who donate their time and by final year students training under mentors. You can also get treatment in your postpartum period as well.

cranial osteopathy has no scientific basis and so it is probably a waste of money. osteopathy for adults can be very dangerous and I would not recommend it to anyone.

Yes, soy as well. I am sure we use rapeseed oil but I will confirm this just to be sure

Yes, we were in AE because she choked whilst throwing up, that was too much for us to watch.
We are on liquid omeprazole but it didn’t make much difference, she is still vomiting. Can we swaddle all the time? Will it let her sleep for longer hours? At the moment she wakes up every half an hour.

Thank you! There are positive and negative responses 😊

Thank you so much for this. We live Near East Midlands so travelling to London will be a bit of a journey for us. The way baby is unsettled I am not confident to take her out that far but it’s really good to know about this centre.

I think you are misunderstanding the science and what this means. It doesn’t mean it works for some people and not for others.

This is exactly my story - apart from the twin

With my subsequent kids they were very medicated - omeprazole, domperidine and some other antacid - and they continued to vomit but in less pain.

I didn't try cranial osteopathy with them because I didn't think it had had a marked effect on the first.

It does pass but it's terrible to see your child in such distress. Anything is worth a try

Mine had reflux. From birth until 9 months ish but would automatically throw up if dc got upset or was ill from nursery. This stopped fully around 18m. CO did nothing for us except cost us a lot of money. We did just over 3 months worth.

What kept it manageable was: infacol before every feed, wait and burp if needed, paced feeding, burp, continue feed, burp, hold baby upright for 35 mins before laying down. It was double destroying and hard work.

I combo fed and had to cut everything pretty much from my diet from the little caffeine I was having to garlic and onions. Life was bland.

We also on pediatrician advice weaned a bit early at 21 weeks on wards. Very slowly and under guidance. I am not suggesting anyone do this without medical advice first.

@SpanThatWorld good to hear of your experience.

I also did what a PP said and held upright for 30 mins after each feed, mixed fed, gave infacol, mixed formula with gaviscon etc. ugh.

She also co slept with me and fed through the night to make up for vomiting all day. She slept in our bed until she was 6 sorry I know that's not for everyone but it worked for us (and remember I had her twin to cope with as well who wasn't as high needs as her. They were born at full term by section and good weights but he was half a pound heavier at birth so just much more settled). My DH tried to sleep train her but it never worked 😬

OP I know it's awful but my DD (and DS) is now 15, very sporty, tall and lovely ❤️ she is very close to me but in a healthy way, so no lasting effects!

Interesting that some of you have had success with infacol. I was told infacol can make reflux worse and so it should be avoided. Wondering now if I missed a trick.

Didn't work for us. I ended up on an extremely restrictive diet (baby wouldn't take a bottle) and that still didn't work. He grew out of it eventually, not sure when, but things started to improve a bit around 1 year. I think our case was extreme though. He vomited so much we couldn't even dose him Omeprazole. I'm not sure how he put on weight!

I was never sure how much stayed in tbf. One of my kids (good, healthy birthweight) dropped to the 0.003 centile. One of my kids' red books had EXTREME reflux written with much underlining from the paediatrician.

No idea how we kept him alive. I think night feeds are often critical as less of that seemed to come up.

I EBF all of mine. Infacol was fairly pointless and i never got any gaviscon in because we didn't use bottles. If I ever got any in from cup feeding, that would come straight back up too.

All big, strapping 6' tall young men now.

I don't need a recommendation from you.

Osteopathy has a solid evidence base as an intervention for lots of mechanical issues. Many a middle aged spine is kept mobile by an osteopath.

Can it be very dangerous? So can paracetamol.

I took my second baby for cranial oestopathy at two weeks old and again at 6 and 10 weeks.
It was an incredibly interesting experience, the practitioner knew what position my baby had been in during pregnancy from treating her and how the birth was from her tension points. I’m not sure it helped the reflux but she was a slightly better sleeper than her sister (still not great). She also straightened my baby’s nose which I didn’t even realise had been damaged- she was hitting my pelvis during labour before my waters broke to “release” her down.