Infant gaviscon

[Picklethewhale]

I have a 3 week old baby girl who has been sick (full feed) 3 times within a week. It wasn't projectile but came out with a little bit of force but did not cause her any discomfort. I believe atleast 1or 2 of them was due to her eating too much. She is EBF and I have a very fast letdown so have been trying to calm this before feeding her.

She was showing signs of silent reflux for a few days but this has since stopped and she doesnt show any signs of discomfort/distress other than when I unlatch her because she is drinking to fast and gets angry with me.

I was due a visit from the health visitor and she said it could be reflux but to speak to the doctor. I spoke to the doctor and without hesitation has prescribed infant gaviscon and told me to give her 1 sachet 6 times a day.

I feel silly for giving it to her as I dont know what it will do for her and also dont want it to cause constipation!

Have any others experienced something like this? Would gripe water potentially help (both sets of parents have mentioned it to us).

Thanks!

So a doctor has told you to give prescribed medicine to your child, and yet you feel silly for giving it to her? Weird way of thinking. You do know doctors have had years of training and they don't just pluck advice from the air?

No need to be rude, I am just asking for others experiences. I have still given my baby the gaviscon but she is exactly the same as before.

Maybe I am being skeptical. I know doctors have lots of training but it was just such a quick telephone conversation, lasted all of 60 seconds, and he didnt ask any questions.
It just seemed to be that because I said the HV said to speak to a doctor that he prescribed it so quickly.

I dont know what 'normal' reflux is so I am just asking for others advice/experiences.

That does seem like a fairly extreme reaction to minor reflux. For context, my son had reflux and was on infant Gaviscon from around three weeks to when he started walking (when it went away). He was being sick after every bottle, sometimes projectile (literally halfway across the room) and was losing weight because he wasn't getting enough food.

Gripe water is for pain/distress, so I'm not sure that's the solution. I'd probably suggest a breastfeeding specialist first, while keeping the Gaviscon as a back up for if she gets distressed or is being sick every day.

Thank you! Its nice to see under what circumstances others were put on it so I have some sort of comparison.
Shes putting on weight, feeding well, plenty of wet nappies with a few instances of being sick so it does feel extreme.

We had it when my little one would get hiccups every time she fed. It might have helped a little so we kept doing it. Never made her constipated. Seems doctors love to prescribe it as doesn’t really do much harm to give and calms parents down. If she’s gaining weight then not a real need. Also hard for EBF

My baby was combination fed, and would produce some sick after every feed (between a tea spoon and table spoon). If LO had a cold, then we got huge amounts of projectile vomit (bottle or breast). Some babies are just very refluxy. If your child doesn't seem in pain, they may not need Gaviscon. They also deal better with a fast let down when they're older (ie two to three months).

My little boy spit up a lot (EBF) and seemed to have some discomfort particularly in the night. I was worried and took him to the doctors, probably about 4 weeks? Doc also prescribed infant gaviscon and said it was probably reflux, which we tried for a bit bit, but to be honest it made no difference so we stopped. Also tried infacol, which didn’t help. He eventually grew out of it 😊 their digestive systems are still developing so I think a lot of stuff which seems worrying is actually pretty normal. I know I felt stressed at the time though!

My son had ‘reflux’ as a baby and it turned out he was lactose intolerant.

My LO was prescribed infant gaviscon for silent reflux. Only 3-4 times a day though and made him very constipated. After that we gave half the prescribed dose which seemed to do the trick. He was on it until he was one.

My daughter had severe silent reflux and ended up at one point on 9 sachets of infant gaviscon a day as well as omperazole and domperidone. We weren't able to stop the infant gaviscon until she turned 5 and she is still on omperazole now aged 6.

She did get constipation and we spent ages fiddling with the amount of gaviscon trying to find the sweet spot where she would get the benefit and in the end we accepted a prescription of lactulose and wished we had done that sooner.

I had my second last year and he started with reflux too although much less screamy that my daughter. Evenings used to be worse and he did a lot of comfort feeding which then gave him awful silent reflux. We got gaviscon again on prescription and thought we would end up on the same path we did with my daughter. We didn't! He had one sachet a day 2 or 4 times a week for about a month, just when he was having a fussy evening and doing a lot of comfort feeding. It reduced his silent reflux reduced his comfort feeding and went away without fuss.