2 week old son, silent reflux

[NatalieP92]

Hi everyone, I am a first time mum and have a 2 week old son who we suspect has silent reflux. He screams for hours on end, throws his head back and arches his back, makes gulping sounds when he feeds, coughs and splutters when feeding, gags etc. Spoke to the health visitor on Thursday and she said could be colic or silent reflux. Have had him on infacol since Thursday afternoon on her recommendation but that doesn't seem to have made a difference. She said to call the gp Monday of there's no improvement over the weekend. I read somewhere that a baby may have reflux if there's a family history of it, which there is in my family and I have a hiatus hernia - which makes it worse because I completely understand the pain he is in if it is reflux! Was just wondering if anyone has any experience with this at all? I just want to help him I'm beside myself seeing him in so much pain. Did anyone else have this and could the doctor help? My health visitor was quite negative and its given me a lot of anxiety. I've heard they may prescribe baby gaviscon, has anyone had experience with this and did it work?

DS had full on reflux. He was diagnosed at 5 weeks. We were prescribed infant gaviscon which he took until around 7 months which did cause slight constipation but he was a different child. Slept well on his back etc. There's different options to help with reflux so I'd make a GP app.

Thanks so much for your reply. Very comforting to know there's potentially something that could bring him relief. He's barely slept all day and has just been screaming in pain its so heartbreaking!

Can you not get infant gaviscon from the pharmacy without prescription? If you can, then do. It is a pretty sure test of silent reflux if he responds positively.

Things that helped:

Mix up the gaviscon with a squirt of milk, in a wee bowl, or Tupperware lid, and suck it up with a syringe (get one from the pharmacy). Poke the syringe into the back of his cheek and give him a little at a time, with time to swallow.

A dummy. Reflux babies need to sooth. I swaddled mine tight and put the dummy in, held tight and upright/diagonally.

Lots of eye contact - reassurance.

Ear muffs. You need to be with him, comforting him, doing laps walking round the house etc. but might need to rest your ears.

I know they say to lay flat in the buggy/pram at this age, but don't! Raised bed, raised bassinet, everything raised. (Hey, you can use all those bloody useless perfect parenting books to raise the cot legs).

My first son had relatively mild reflux, was prescribed gaviscon which was almost impossible to give , its much easier if bottle feeding but I found it very difficult when breast feeding. Then when I did get a few doses in , he was in agony with constipation.

Dc2 had silent reflux, very badly. I barely slept for the first 3 weeks, sitting upright holding him so he could sleep. Took him to the GP, got gaviscoj, honestly it nearly tipped me over the edge. Went back within the week, saw a different GP and got ranitidine and a referral. The ranitidine was an absolute life saver and SO much easierto give.

Not available without prescription unfortunately but I'd maybe contact out of hours if he's that bad?

Thanks everyone, have contacted an out of hours doctor who asked a lot questions now just waiting for a call back. Praying something helps I think he's had about 3 hours sleep in total since about 5 this morning!

Well that wasn't very helpful, was just told we're not winding him enough and if it carries on to take him to a&e. I feel hopeless 😞

My daughter was prescribed gaviscon, it helped but did cause constipation. So they gave her omeprazole which is better, just tricky to get her take it from a syringe. Baby gaviscon is available to buy over the counter, as I ran out one day and went to my local asda and bought some. I agree the dummy helps too.

Try keeping him upright for a little bit, and put the crib on an incline. Hopefully the GP can help on Monday.

My now 19 week old has silent reflux. He's on gaviscon and it's really helped. In the first few weeks, we put Colief drops in his bottle (which help with colic) as they make baby poo so no constipation problems.
Are you bottle feeding? We use MAM bottles and started on number 1 teats, as we did with our other children, but we had to go down a size for quite a few weeks.

@NatalieP92
Sorry you are having a touch time. Please have a read of this

www.babydoc.com.au/faq/colic-bore-your-baby-to-sleep/

It's a great insight into newborns and I think it will be helpful. He sounds really overtired and struggling to make sense of a new world. It's so hard when they scream - they may seem in pain because this is our interpretation but we just don't know.

My son has silent reflux I totally sympathise with you!

I found out that infacol makes silent reflux worse so if I were you I would stop that ASAP just incase.

Cow and gate carobel was my life saver! Bought some off Amazon to try and then the doctors prescribed it. Thickened the milk, kept baby upright for atleast 30 mins after a feed and it worked amazingly!