16 week old with reflux symptoms, thriving but silent reflux concerns

[fourthloss]

I have a 16 week old baby. He was spitting up his milk constantly and uncomfortable after feeds, though not crying. He is gaining weight amazingly and thriving really well on HIPP organic. However he has reflux symptoms. You can hear his tummy making noises after he’s been fed, extremely difficult to burp and bring wind up. Squirming around and sometimes has spasm like movements after feeding. He sleeps all night and enjoys lying on his back.

We were given omeprazole after a visit to hospital as I mistook the spasms for seizures however after doing my research I chose not to give him the medication as he is gaining weight perfectly and isn’t in distress with the reflux. Just fussy at times.
I use a prep machine, we have stopped using this and I have introduced carobel the last couple weeks which has been stopping him from physically being sick, although now I think his reflux has turned into silent reflux as he is bringing milk up and swallowing it back down, you can hear him doing it and see it in his face. He also can become short of breath at times with this. No choking episodes.

Is this something he will grow out of hopefully any success stories. Should we revisit the medication? So many mixed reviews from others on whether medication actually worked for them.

I am suffering a lot with post natal anxiety after an extremely traumatic birth and this is just adding to things as I’m worried he is going to aspirate or choke. Any advice, this is my second child and never experienced reflux previously.

I have a lot of experience with reflux. My daughter is 5 and has had it from birth.
It's difficult to decide at times when is it right to give medication to babies.
If reflux is impacting weight, development or causing distress it's quite easy to realise that something needs to be done.
When it's not it can be a harder call, there is your wellbeing to consider too, I had severe pnd with my daughter and her reflux was a significant factor.

You could try omperazole or ask for a thickener such as gaviscon or carobel. The idea behind infant reflux is that the valve at the top of the stomach isn't underdeveloped and as they have a liquid diet it is easy for the feeds to come back up. As they get older this strengthens and as they move on to solids they have a less liquid diet. The combination means they stop refluxing as much. The two main approaches are thickening the feeds so they are harder to bring up or using medication to reduce the amount of acid the stomach produces. This can make you reflux less and cause less discomfort when you do reflux.

There are other causes of reflux as well, if you have a dairy allergy or intolerance you are more likely to have reflux and if there is a tongue tie. Tongue tie can cause you to take in more air when suckling and this can cause them to bring up the feed. Comfort feeding and taking more than is comfortable can also trigger a bit of reflux.

I think I probably would be going back to the gp to discuss your medication options, you would need an up to date weight for the omperazole, if you were to go down that route, so reaching out to your HV too might help.

My daughter started on gaviscon at 6 weeks and omperazole at 8 weeks but was 17 weeks before we made progress. She only responds to the highest doses of omperazole and needed gaviscon too. She also has multiple allergies including dairy and soya so I had to remove these from my diet. Before we were moved to the highest dose of omperazole we had developmental delays thought to be caused by her distress. Once the omperazole couldn't be increased further we had a third medication called domperidone added which speeds up the emptying of the stomach. This was at 8 months. She is still on omperazole but recently we have been able to stop the domperidone and gaviscon. She is in the highly unusual camp of not outgrowing her reflux and at 3 we ended up under 2 paediatricians for it! Most babies grow out of reflux around 6 months, only ~10% still have it at 12 months and very few still have it by 2 years

I have a 6 month old as well and he has reflux too but mostly his is physical. He is sick frequently, not upset by it, gaining weight fine, developing as expected. We have gaviscon on prescription which we give when he is bothered by the reflux but we haven't had to give it that often.