Occasional vomiting in two-week-old breastfed baby

[whiteorchid]

Any ideas as to why my DD is vomiting up entire feeds occasionally? It's only happened four or five times in the last week, but I'm finding it pretty distressing when it happens. She, on the other hand, seems completely nonplussed by it, and simply feeds again a few minutes later.

I mentioned it to HV who said it might be an allergy to something I've eaten in the last 24 hrs (eg intolerance to cow's milk), but then wouldn't she vomit up all her feeds, not just a few of them?

It may be an intolerance, but I think its just what some babies do - I talked to one mum that regularly got through 40 muslins per day trying to mop up the sick from her BF baby. Like your DD, though, the child seemed absolutely fine. If you feel as though your DD is OK in all other respects (wet & dirty nappies, alert periods, etc), then try not to worry too much.

Does it happen every feed for a period of time, or once a day? If you think it might be an intolerance, you could try keeping a food diary and seing if there's any correlation between you eating, say, tomatoes and DD having a sicky episode.

Hi,

Both my babies used to regularly throw up what seemed like an entire feed. They were quite happy afterwards and wouldn't even usually need feeding again. Ocasionally it would be projectile vomit which could travel quite a distance and did worry me at first.

I did wonder with my first whether it was due to something I'd eaten and kept a food diary for a while but then came to the conclusion that it was just them getting used to drinking the milk. My flow is quite fast and I think they would guzzle, and perhaps get an air bubble that pushed it all back up. Sometimes their digestive systems need a little while to develop properly to digest the milk. Eventually my DS just grew out of it and I am expecting my DD to as well (she is now 8 weeks). I am just used to having an army of muslins wherever I go! As long as your DD is happy and still putting on weight normally I wouldn't worry - just feed as normal and get used to having baby sick on you for the next little while (I keep a change of clothes for both of us in the changing bag)

whiteorchid, you're right to doubt your HV's explanation. It's far more likely your baby is perfectly fine and allergy free as massive throw ups like this in a healthy, thriving baby are just part of normal newborn behaviour! Snowflake's explanation is a sensible one, I think...and they do grow out of it

Thank you for your posts - very reassuring. She's also got a bit of cough/cold at the moment - no doubt due to toddler DS dribbling affectionately all over her - so am wondering whether the phlegm is exacerbating the sickiness. She does these weird burp-cum-cough-cum-retch things....

My milk flow is also quite fast this time, snowflake, much more so than with DS. She's also a much more efficient feeder than he was, so perhaps she's simply taking too much to quickly for her little stomach?