Hi there,
1st time posting on here!
My 12 week old has been having feeding issues and acid reflux, so having really poor weight gain and on the 2nd percentile.
Not sure anyone on here has been in a similar situation?
We just wanted to get him to a stage where he is gaining more weight and in a percentile that is right for him.
Many Thanks
Is your GP or nurse able to work closely with you on helping resolve this at your baby clinic. Its such a concern when a little one is struggling. My grand daughter did too when a tiny baby but grew out of it but it was stressful at the time. Hope things resolve very soon.
I'm not sure if they prescribe ranitidine anymore but my 5 year old suffered with reflux when he was baby too. The ranitidine sorted it out straight away. He was on it until he was weaned and eating solids. Hope your gp can help
Thanks! I think this medication has been discontinued. We have something similar. Thanks for the reassurance, hopefully the same happens to us!
My grandson also suffered from acid reflux. He was prescribed Gaviscon, and Ranitidine, cannot remember in what order. We all did a lot of keeping him upright after feeds, he was a slow feeder so was tiring for my daughter. No doing a quick night feed and putting him back down. He gradually grew out of it, but it was stressful while he was small. When he could roll over and choose how he slept, he always slept on his front, but we always put him on his back as per advice.He is now a lively 9yr old. They do get over it.
Have you tried baby massage, which works for some?
Thanks for your message Jean. I am booked in for baby massage. Will try this. X
We went through this over thirty years ago with our first child, and then again to a lesser extent with our second child. The main difference to your case is that I knew something was wrong (he had a very healthy appetite but wasn’t putting on weight in the same way as other babies were) but I wasn’t believed. When it became obvious to the medics there was a problem the impression I got was that in their opinion the fault obviously lay with me - the first time mum. I had my breast milk tested (for quality and quantity) and when that came back as fine and my son began to lose weight he was admitted to hospital with me in attendance. Even once there I was accused to of being so emotionally wound up by the situation that it was resulting in my son refusing to eat solids. I remember I was so furious at the suggestion that had I access to a car I would have walked out and taken my son with me. As it was when it came to his next feed I breast fed him but refused to feed him solids fearing that when he sicked it up (which I knew from experience he would having refused to eat) I would be blamed. It was only when the know it all nurse who had told me it was my emotional state was to blame decided to get solids into him and he sicked up all over her that they admitted something was wrong. The following morning he was given a barium meal and it took them just thirty seconds to realise that I’d been right all along and he had a massive reflux problem. He was seven or eight months old at the time. I’d been saying something was wrong for about four months by that time.
He was put on three medications for it, one of which, cisapride, was withdrawn a few years later. I’m fairly certain ranitidine was another one but I can’t recall what the third was. The combination sorted him out.
When our second child, another boy, also had issues we were at least listened to and he did, eventually , after several tests which confirmed our suspicions, get given similar treatment. He didn’t get the cisapride but he got the other two. I say “eventually” because I was told it would be a 1 in 3000 chance to have two out of two children with the same problem to which I returned “and how do you know that we’re not the 1 in 3000?” I got no reply.
We were also told to try to keep them upright after feeds (which, incidentally, is also advised for adults with reflux). Both boys were fine once passed their first year and have grown up in to healthy young men with very good appetites and no issues from reflux.
Thanks so much Maggie.
This message really helped me.
I am having a similar issue as it has taken me 2 months to get seen by a paediatrician for this.
There have been a lot of scary conversations about how it could potentially be a sign of more serious illness or a genetic condition, but I am watching my son vomit continuously all day long. The weight gain is so stressful.
Thankfully I met with a consultant yesterday that listened to me and a dietitian.
Fingers crossed we can get this baby moving up the percentiles and being close to a healthy weight for his height.
Thanks again for your kind response.
X
The amount of vomiting you mention should flag up there might be a problem with reflux. The complicating factor we had was that our elder son didn’t always vomit after feeds (every fourth or fifth day he’d go through a really bad patch and then things seemed to settle again). But the lack of weight gain was an issue and very suggestive that something wasn’t right; the problem I had with the medics was that they seemed to assume I was the problem. In all other respects our son seemed healthy enough and his development normal for his age.
I will also add that when they checked our second son with a barium meal for the same thing aged 3.5 months nothing originally showed up, but I was told it didn’t always at that age. That said, we are talking thirty years ago and things/tests/treatments etc may well have changed/advanced since then. It was later testing via 24hr ph monitoring which revealed there was indeed an issue.
There is nothing wrong with being on the 2nd percentile as long as he is following the curve then it's not an issue weight is only and issue if they drop down the percentiles or jump up percentiles. All babies are different so as long as he has lots if wet nappies, is alert and follows the 2nd percentile curve it is fine. GP can prescribe baby gavicon to help with the reflux.
True - this issue I had was that both our sons were alert and had plenty of wet nappies but their weight gain was atypical and had a consistently downward trajectory once past three months of age - something that introducing solids had no impact on.
Years later we discovered that I have HSD (hypermobility spectrum disorder - an inherited collagen/connective tissue disorder) and developed reflux problems myself. One gastro consultant I saw, on hearing of the reflux/acidosis issues I had with two out of two babies, suspected an inherited weakness at once. Both boys are now adults. The elder son (who had the problem worse as a baby) also shows hypermobility issues; the younger one has recently been identified as having a collagen related issue with his eyes.
Eb20, research infantile thiamine deficiency and how it applies to reflux. Thiamine requires magnesium for activation. Discuss this with his pediatrician.
Will look into it - I will research if my supplements contain enough.....
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