7 month old has gastroenteritis, can't seem to keep anything down....is it silly to try giving her milk??

[stellyp]

Hi, Im at my wits end...I just found out this morning that my LO has gastroenteritis. The GP has told me not to feed LO and to concentrate on rehydrating her,but LO looks so hungry and I really want to give her some milk. Is this wrong? Can i give her a weaker strength milk (even though cow&gate advices us not to) I just don't know what to do
Please help

you might find she vomits the milk back up, you could try it really, really diluted, but try water first, she won;t have much appetite anyway if she is ill, so get water into her

you can use a medicine syringe to give it to her if she won;t drink out of a bottle, or let her suck a flannel!

You poor poor poor things, you will probably get it as well so make sure you are both being looked after.

When my nephew had it (2.5 at the time), my sister was told to try and get water in him first. If I were you, I'd concentrate on hydrating your dd first. As Lulu said, a flannel to suck or an ice block (needs to be a big block so dd doesn't swallow it).

Good Luck

Stelly,

How old is LO and how long as s/he been poorly?

Doh, that will be seven months then...sorry, at home on codeine and I'm going to blame them for scattiness!!

Apparently milk isn't the best idea as its a bit too rich. Gastroentiritis upsets the balance of bacteria in the gut so it can take them a while to get over it. Dairy doesn't help this process.

At seven months I assume you have / are weaning - if you think s/he is hungry, try baby rice made up with water instead of milk, and mix it very runny so its easy to digest and more importantly, easy to bring back up again!

I started on this then had to progress to what the HV called a blonde diet, completely dairy free, he just ate chicken, potato, pasta, rice, porridge made with water, fruit and veg puree. I watered the above down until I was sure I was getting something out.

If its very early stages and the main problem is dehydration then you must force water on your LO. DS was refusing to drink a week ago and HV said mum knows best, 5mls every 5 mins. But this was after nearly 18 hours with no wet nappy.

Hope this is helpful, however unlike some mumsnetters, I'm just a mum, with no medical quals whatsoever - ring your HV or GP for more help.

Yep, just spotted that she's a girl. I'm going back to bed

don't worry about food for now, like others have said - water's more important
DS had a nasty 24-hour bug last fri, with vile diarrhoea every 30-60 mins, so he was losing fluid quite a bit
i think the 5 mls every 5 mins is a great idea, as most will get absorbed, and there'll be nothing for the stomach to expel, as it were.
on sat and sun, he was very thirsty (hardly surprising), so he had water, breastmilk and diluted puree to eat
a week on, he's only just got his appetite back, so don't worry too much...they "know" what they're doing
if she starts getting listless and unresponsive, then call your GP, but for now, keep up with the fluids
hope she's better soon and that you don't get it
honestly, it's just bug city for anyone with children at the mo!

Cows milk formula might have a rather nasty after effect . My H/V prescribed SMA LF (Lactose Free) for temporary lactose intolerance after my 7mth ds had viral gastoenteritis. He went back to normal formula after a few weeks slowly building up. There is an nhs Q&A here

My only experience is that it takes time, and the recommendation of either only water (or rehydrating sachets, diarolite?) is good, and with DS1 we had to use soya-based formula milk for aout 4 days until things got better. He quickly got over the vomiting but it take ages to get rid of the runny poos. Soya milk did help I'm sure, but it did take a long time before he got his apetite back.

they normally say to weaken milk but milk can also dehydrate so important water is main feed until rehydrated

mash potatoe is great for this as any starchy food is recommended

I thought I should update this post, despite such a long time this was posted. So that other mums that are going through the same and are reseraching the web get to know the answer:
Little babies with viral gastroenteritis, will vomit every formula/breast milk feed and will prensent fever and diarrhea for more than a few days. Fever should last up to 3 or so days, to control the fever use calpol and Neurofen... after the fever is over, the vomiting and diarrhea will persist with NO fever.
In the babies intestines there is a layer of enzimes that should break the lactose and digest it, allowing the gut to absorb the nutrients in the breastmilk/formula. However, after so many days with strong diarrhea this layer is totally wiped out and destroyed, and for a while you baby will become lactose intolerant, this is not permanent, just temporary (may last 2 to 3 weeks after no longer presenting any of the synthoms). Meaning if you feed her/him breast or formula milk while still with gastroenteritis, they will poo even more, diarrhea gets worse (btw the poo will look as cottage cheese when fed milk). Solution for VIRAL Gastroenteritis:
-Control fever with CALPOL and NEUROFEN, follow the indications in the package
-Keep baby hydrated with Dyuralite or similar solution (replace all feeds with Dyuralite, avoid feeding your baby milk at all cost)
-After fever is no longer there and you baby has flushed out her/his system carry on feeding Dyuralite for another 24hours.
-Now with no fever, start slowing to replace dyuralite with a diluted version of Lactose Free Formula over a 24hrs period.

Feed your baby for the next 2 weeks only Lactose Free milk and if they also eat solids then offer solids like rice, carrots, bananas and potatos. Nothing that may contain milk.
After 3 weeks your baby should have the enzymes again and might be ready to process milk again.
It took us 7 days, 4 trips to hospitals, 4 GPs appointments and one pediatric gastro specialyst to laern this. So I though it was my duty to pass it around.

Good Luck!

agraves, it is good to have decent info out there, so to that end and even though this is an old thread...

DD had gastroenteritis twice as a baby and norovirus recently (nearly 3).

BM is brilliant, some will stay down even if still vomitting and it has seen dd through 3 stomach bugs without dehydration. She recovered very quickly indeed once the vomitting had passed.

I avoided dairy completely but when giving solids again allowed her whatever she fancied within reason. There is good evidence to suggest there is now no need to following the BRAT/blonde diet but imo it's best to be child led and be aware of what they can tolerate.

I never gave calpol/nurofen during stomach bugs, let the fever do its job, kept her cool in other ways. She would have brought it straight back up anyway.

Vile things gastro bugs.