A question about Infant Gaviscon and breast feeding...

[lardybump]

I am so stressed at the moment. DS has reflux and is on Infant Gaviscon. The thing is the gaviscon seems to make him worse. I have to give it to him after feed mixed with water. I have tried bottle and he will not take it. I tried spooning it in and he gags on it and is sick... He hadnt been sick today until gave him the gavisgon and he gaged 3 times then brought up the whole feed..... The only other thing I can do is mix it with milk but I am not very good at expressing so that will mean giving up bf!!!! But no one can tell me for sure that this is reflux (he was admitted to hospital and they rulled out lots of things but couldnt say for sure why he was so sick and so said they would treat him for reflux), or that the gavisgon will actually help so I could be giving up for nothing..... i am so upset I want to do whats best but I dont know what that is!!!

However I have just experimented and I have got it down him and he has kept a feed down but I have totally gone against what it said on the packet. I expressed an oz of milk and mixed it into that, I left him to get really hungry then gave him the bottle (which he took) as soon as he finished the oz I put him on boob......

On the packet it says:

breast fed: add to 15ml of cooled boiled water and give after each feed.

bottle fed: mix with not less than 125ml of milk....

Do you think this is ok??? I am using a lot less milk than it says and giving it before feed!!!

DS is only 4 weeks so very tiny. I could certainly give up dairy to see if that helps. I have tried syringe but it made him sick its the taste he hates.

I am putting him straight on boob after the oz in bottle so i think he is getting enough liquid but its not mixed iyswim

ds has gaviscon and i manage to get it in him by mixing it with 10mls of ebm and using a syringe to administer, he'll take it ok mixed with milk but not atall mixed with water ( and i can't say i blame him!)

I'm sure the way your doing it wil be ok my dr told us t play around with it to see howe worked best.

If you think hes better without it then wouldnt worry to much about it though

Have you tried warming the bottle with water mixture? My DD wouldn't take it cold at first.

Second that re doing between sides - I spoke to the Gaviscon helpline and they said it wouldn't work if you give it before the feed - also re going DF- i've been DF for 4 weeks now and it's really helped my DD. .

Finally, go to your docs and request a referral to a paedriatrician, there are other drugs you can try but a lot of doctors won't prescribe them, you may have to wait for a paed so do it sooner rather than later.

Good luck, I know how hellish it is!

My DS was also prescribed infant Gaviscon and like you I was breastfeeding. He also wouldn't take it in water (which also I can understand) so, if it helps, I did the same as you and gave it in a small amount of EBM in a bottle (my DS is good with bottles, fortunately). There seems to be virtually no medicine that is really/easily compatible with breastfeeding.

I also wasn't sure whether it was helping or not - partly because I wasn't sure whether or not my DS had full-on reflux: he seems more to have episodes of it then they subside. I gave him a dose or two a day, so not with each feed by any means, for a couple of days and then stopped it, by which time it didn't seem to matter. Since then I have only given it on days when he seemed particularly bad, when it does seem to help a bit. So you could try stopping and then just giving as required. But if he really is suffering, I would ask about getting something else prescribed. I have read lots of stuff saying Gaviscon is the answer to reflux, but a lot of other stuff saying it doesn't really do anything, so it really does seem to be pot luck...

At any rate I wouldn't give up BF for an uncertain gain - if you just give one dose a day, as I did, you would only need to express 1oz so maybe that would make things easier. Good luck anyway.

My DS is only 5 weeks, and I use the syringe you get in baby nurofen packs to administer (but even then we don't get through a full dose).