What is gripe water exactly?

[squizita]

My 4 week old EBF baby can be a little windy/grumbly (often at night as she can have grouchy, fussy moments then - needing to re latch or spluttering as if too much gas hone down - though shes fine in the day). Pretty sure its not reflux or anything worse than trapped wind as she doesnt cry or vomit, just grumbles, lifts legs etc and it improves with winding.

Some other mums mentioned gripe water and infacol.
Daft question but what are they? How do they work? Do they work or am I better off just patting her back for ages at 1am.

Gas hone? HAS GONE.

Gripe water is herbs (usually dill and maybe something else, like cardamom) in water.

There is no evidence it has any clinical effect at all...but I don't think it is harmful in any way. Years ago, it had alcohol in, but not now.

Infacol has simeticone in it - you can google this. No evidence it helps, either. Again, no harm.

Patting back for ages is usually a waste of time. Easier just to soothe by feeding (again) :)

Thanks!

My 4 week old has terrible wind and colic. grunts amd groans from 11pm to 4am. Infacol made no difference, two doses of gripe water and he was a different baby, settled and slept for 3 hour stretch for first night in a week.

Thanks- something to bear in mind. Mine isn't all night but might well try it if it gets bad.

Breast milk and a burp soothes her at the moment!

Yes gripe water was a miracle worker us around 8 weeks.

Gripe water also often contains sodium bicarbonate, which produces carbon dioxide when it hits the acidic stomach... hence the burps.

So it's possible that stimulating burping might relieve some discomfort in some cases, though it doesn't help most of the time. If it did, there would be good evidence it helped with colic. But no harm trying

Yep - some formulations have sodium bicarb in, and I agree with you, geeka - v. unlikely to have any effect on grouchy babies.

The best thing I found for dd1 was infacol, she was a nightmare to bring wind up and it really helped. It didn't work so well for dd2 who's wind problems were at the other end - baby massage was far more effective for her. The basic technique is to rub 10 clockwise circles on your baby's abdomen then lift their knees to their chest and hold them there for 10 seconds. You will hear the results

Of all the anti-colic/gas treatments I've found that Dentinox liquid works best. X