2 month old digestion issues

[Nascette]

Hi all,

I posted a while back that my newborn was struggling with reflux and not being able to poo. It was mostly dismissed as being normal for a newborn so we gave her time to develop. However she's now two months old, she cries, arches her back and swings her head around after every feed and is constantly bringing up milk both fresh and curdled. Sometimes without pain and sometimes with lots of crying and flailing. She also hasn't got the hang of this pooping business either! It can be 4 or 5 days between (she's formula fed on kendamil) and it can take 24 - 48 hours of on/off pushing, straining, crying and vomiting to pass it which is exhausting for us as much as her. When it passes the consistency is fine there is just huge amounts of it.

We have tried: all the massages out there, infacol, gripe water, sitting up after feeds, baths, water with medical advice. We are currently on colief which helps her poo every day (although it's always a watery, vinegar smelling poonami) but her reflux seems worse, to the point that she's choking 3 or 4 times a night and sometimes during feeds. She's also harder to wind for some reason which also causes discomfort.

So currently it's a toss up between terrible daily poos with reflux or no poos but 24-48hours where she's pushing so much and hard that she's vomiting and barely sleeps.

We have our 8 week appointment tomorrow and I don't even know what I need help with first. Does anyone else have anything similar? Especially the poop issue as I've never met anyone who has a baby that doesn't poo! I feel like I'm going in circles with it, please help!

Forgot to add... She had dropped from the 75th to just above the 25th percentile on her last HV check and the HV was concerned about this and her behaviour after watching her feed.

Sounds like my DD before her CMPA diagnosis.

Can I ask for more detail, how was your dd? I've been wondering about this. And how was it diagnosed? Thanks!

Agree you need to try dairy free prescription formula as those are a lot of symptoms of cmpa (although my DD requires omeprazole despite being on dairy free formula). GP will likely ask you to try a partially hydrolysed formula such as pepti 1,but this still contains milk, so if symptoms are not completely resolved you need to ask for neocate, sma alfamino or puramino. They are expensive though and some GPs do not like prescribing, likewise with omeprazole suspension. Your dc is quite young for omeprazole too, our dd didn't have it until 5 months old. It also needs the dose adjusting as they gain weight. But the choking and weight loss sounds severe. If you have no luck with GP, go to a children's hospital or hospital that has a children's a&e. You will need to fight, don't be fobbed off. Video the choking and feed refusal (awful, I know). Good luck x

DD was breastfed and used to scream after every feed, was constantly VERY windy and none of the usual tricks that people suggest (bicycle legs, tummy massage etc) every worked. She would go days without pooing but would be constantly straining to go and then when she finally did, it would be a huge explosive mess. Sleep was rubbish and she was generally a really unsettled baby- if she wasn't feeding, she was crying and eventually from pure exhaustion she might sleep.

Once when she was about 7 weeks old, my lactation consultant happened to come home at the same time she'd done a poonami and she commented that her poo being so frothy might be a sign of CMPA. I cut out dairy and saw a huge difference within days.

Eventually we decided to combination feed but had to get referred to a paediatric dietician to confirm diagnosis before the GP would prescribe a dairy free formula.