Reflex questions...

[PemPemLondon]

Hi everyone,

I hope some one can answer a couple of questions! My son 14 wks been on gaviscon for 2 weeks now. It's really working in terms of his mad screaming fits and gagging throaty symptoms. He is generally a much more settled baby and I was really getting down until we made this discovery. But now he is incredibly constipated.

GP prescribed lactulose which is helping to some extent but seems wrong to counteract one medication with another at this little age. HV wants me to stop with the lactulose (thinks it will cause a lazy bowel and is too harsh for little baby bowels) and give him cool boiled water instead. She said they would never normally advice water for a bf baby, which I already knew, but that in this case it would be the lesser of two evils and would help his bowel movements. What do you think - and how much would I give? He hates taking a bottle...

Also, can reflux symptoms be confused with/exasperated by oversupply/fast letdown? I have been expressing recently to mix with the gaviscon and it's made my already oversupply go crazy - I feel permanently engorged. Today he has started being sick again but without all the pain of the reflux - would this be to to with oversupply rather than reflux rearing its head again?

Thanks in advance!

i can't see how giving him water will help his constipation if he is bf. presumably he is not dehydrated, and he is unlikely to drink much in the way of water anyway if you are bf on demand

DD was on gaviscon and the paed insisted that it did not cause constipation. definitely it made her poo go really weird and grainy, but they said it wasn't a problem. i instinctively didn't like it. gradually reduced the amount of gaviscon i gave her, until i reached a balance between reflux and grainy poo.

wouldn't recommend you do that tho, unless you talk to GP first

you could also try a different med - there is ranitidine that you can get via the gp / paed and also other meds for gaviscon...

Thanks. No he's not dehydrated. Apparantly the water hydrated the bowel or something. She said the constipation was caused by not enough water in the bowel.

My GP also insisted it doesn't cause constipation but still gave me the latculose... I'm sure it does though as so many people have this side effect.

Baby is 6.8kg, and GP prescribed 2 sachets gavsicon 6xday. Seems a lot. Does this sound normal? If I wanted to cut down would it be better to give 2x sachets 3/4 times a day, or 1 sachet 6x day? Otherwise will ask for something else...

2 sachets 6xdaily is an awful lot. My ds is 6.32kg and I've been told 6 sachets max per 24hrs

I thought it sounded a lot. Gp and I must have both mis understood the directions on the box which say something like 2 sachets = 1 dose, max 6 doses in 24 hrs. It was a bit confusing. Bloody hell I've OD'd my baby on gaviscon :(

Think it's too much too. My ds is on 6 x 1 sachet and he is nearly 13 lbs. In fact the gp said only 4 sachets.....but he was v sick after the 2 bottles without it in. No constipation really noted. But he could win a farting competition if there was such a thing!

Oh I don't know what to do. I just checked the pack and it says over 4.5 kg, 2 doses up to 6 times a day. But the general consensus is that's too much, and it's clearly making him suffer (forcing out little pellets in the early hours of the morning). I didn't give him any gaviscon this afternoon and he's been really refluxy. I gave him a single sachet this evening but he's grunting away in his cot now. I do think my oversupply has a lot to do with it too.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to give the gaviscon to a bf baby? The expressing is driving me and my supply mad, but syringe isn't working either... Must taste vile :(

oh OP - so sorry for you

no advice really. i ended up having to express all my milk and give it to DD in a bottle because if i fed her from the breast and then tried to give her gaviscon, she wouldn't take it as she would be busy being sick from reflux after about 3 mins on the breast. and if i tried to give it to her first, she went nuts because she wanted milk and thrashed around and refused the gaviscon...

so in the end, i went to exclusive expressing and mixing the gaviscon in with the milk, which i did for 5 months. it drove me insane, mainly because she still fed so poorly. i would spend hours expressing / sterilising etc, and then she would take an ounce and scream. then fall asleep for 3 hours.

gavison / ranitidine are good, but they aren't wonder drugs. unfortunately, the only thing that helped DD was the passage of time.

while she was still mainly milk fed, she was pale, wan and sickly. she grew slowly and dropped through the centiles (from 75th at birth to below the 9th at 6 months - i then stopped taking her to be weighed as there was always so much grief but no-one had any advice on how to make her feed better). as soon as she switched to eating more solids than she was drinking milk (so at 12 months), she became so much more active and healthy. the reflux was a large part of the problem - she had a very bad association in her mind between milk feeds and reflux pain / vomiting obviously.

i know that's not what you want to hear - but now she is 2.5yrs old, on the 75th centile for height and weight, guzzles milk and packs away the food and is only sick when she has a screaming tantrum.