Silent Reflux or normal behaviour?

[Fantail]

I am very happily breastfeeding my 4 week old daughter. Every thing is going well, she is gaining weight well, is pooing and weeing and is alert. But there are a couple of things that are worrying me about her behaviour.

First is that she gets hiccups at least once, if not twice every day. Secondly, she very rarely spits up after a feed, but when she does so it is always when she is asleep or when she is awake it comes up, but then she swallows it again. She also groans and grizzles a lot in her sleep (like she is uncomfortable), but sleeps well during the day.

Last night she cried a lot and took a long time to settle and was acting like she was in pain (legs drawn up etc). I gave her some infacol which did help her to bring up some wind, but she didn't want to be in her cot. She eventually napped and then slept from 2am through to 5am in her rocker chair and then from 6am through to 7.30am in her cot and has been asleep for the last hour and a half, firstly in her cot and then she cried and I thought she would wake up, but I transferred her to her rocker and she has gone back to sleep.

It is probably me worrying without need, but I would hate to think that I am ignoring her pain if she does have reflux. I have had friends with babies with reflux, but they have all spat up a lot, which she doesn't do. Of course I have read far to much on the internet and have seen mentions of hiccups, swallowing spit ups, groaning in the sleep mentioned as symptoms of silent reflux, so I wondered what you all thought?

My ds had reflux and he had similar symptoms but he was vomiting lots as well.

My ds always used to get woken from his sleep by something and I am convinced it was the reflux.

Is she quite sucky? ie does she like to feed a lot and for a long time?

I'd mention it to the health visitor or take her to the GP - if it's not too bad then they might be able to easily treat it with Gaviscon or equivalent.

She is feeding every 2 - 3 hours on average, but in the evening when she is less settled (after 8pm) she feeds every 1 - 1 1/2 hours. She doesn't feed for a long time, the longest is about 25 minutes.

I'd definitely take her to the GP, it sounds like she may have silent reflux. Reflux gets worse when the baby's on her back, so it might be the pain waking her.

The pain gets worse over time - my LO went from being a happy baby who slept most of the day at two weeks to crying constantly and hardly sleeping at all at five weeks. She was prescribed Infant Gaviscon when she was six weeks and that made her a lot better.

I found those quite helpful, too:
www.askdrsears.com/html/10/T106000.asp
www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/reflux.html

It is hard to diagnose silent reflux, gp will probably just give you Gaviscon and say to give it a go. We found it hard to give as he wouldn't take a bottle. Got him referred to a paed as like you didn't want to think he was in pain and we were ignoring it. She thought it was just his behaviour. I also found it helpful to discuss in detail with breastfeeding counsellers - La Leche etc.

Hiccups could be perfectly normal!

I took DD to a cranial osteopath who though she had silent reflux. 2 sessions and she no longer displays any symptoms (never being sick, white tongue, hiccups, not wanting to lay on back). Might be worth a go.

I also took ds for cranial osteopathy, as well as baby massage - he completely changed after starting the baby massage - he had previously always "looked" in pain and would never be still. He was always writhing around, obviously trying to get comfortable, poor little thing.

Does she arch her back? This is another classic symptom of reflux.

There is a really good support thread on here if she does get diagnosed with it - I'll have a look for it.

Here is the reflux support thread

Thank you for your advice.

No, she doesn't arch her back and is happy to feed and is ok on her back, she doesn't cry like she is in pain. I am thinking that she might just have trapped wind as the infacol seems to be helping her.

I am still worried about the hiccups and the inability to throw up properly. I am also aware that reflux can take a few weeks to really develop properly.