Newborn Tummy Troubles

[JessieJane]

Hello there, my baby girl Ottilie is experiencing bad tummy troubles. She is only 2 weeks and 6 days old. I was on 2 IV anti biotics for 5 days and then a course of oral anti biotics for 7 days as I got an infection after my cesarian. Ottilie is breast feeding every 3-4 hours and seems to be feeding well but after every feed she is groaning, moaning and really struggling with what seems like pushing a poo. She has good bowl movements, but I would say that are very explosive. I have tried her on infacol and just started corelief yesterday. I am winding her after feeds but she doesn’t always burp. Is this maybe becuase she is breast fed she may not have as much wind?

I am so desperate for her pain to go away. I think it could be to do with me being on anti biotics having affected her gut flora but any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[Lovefood1984]

Breast milk is great for gut flora so you’re doing the right thing feeding her even though you’ve had antibiotics. If things don’t settle down and she continues to look uncomfortable after feeds I’d possibly look into a food allergy. Lactose intolerance is really rare in babies so the colief may not help much however milk, soya and egg allergies can be a lot more common. Unfortunately the only way to tell is to trial eliminating it from your diet to see if things settle (it can take a few weeks but you should see a big difference in a few days as it comes out of your body), once settled you re-introduce to confirm and eliminate again if necessary. If you do decide to exclude things to rule this route out please seek advice from your health visitor as you may need supplements/have to think about your diet a bit more carefully so you don’t end up short on nutrients. It’s just an idea, it may be just that she is so new to the world (I have an allergy baby and I wish I’d trusted my instincts over the midwife telling me it was just colic 🙄 but by then I was mixing breast milk and formula as I struggled to get breastfeeding established) x

[jessyjessy572]

Hi Jessie I know your pain we have gone through the same with our boy from what you are saying your little one might be stuffing from trap wind. I was bottle feeding but I learned that it really doesn’t matter either way they can have a problem we have tried multiple things so I can’t tell you one thing that made a difference but we have manage to sort the problem this is what we have tried:

- infacol - it took few days before we have seen impact but it helped with his wind

- belly massage every day at least 3 times a day (you can you tube colic massage is very easy)

- Pre made milk - not applicable to you as you are Breastfeeding

- burping - same as you hardest job ever but it took some time but eventually we fund most successful method, try different positions for us seating up worked best, try to burp half the feed, and don’t give up at times it took us good 15 -20 min of padding him before we got a burp but at the end it was worth it

- nap in a sling - as the baby is pushing on belly after the nap when I took him out a lot of gas come out , also when he was in a slink it gave me a chance to do something

- osteopath , professional massage to help babies with gas problem colic etc and a plus was he loved it too

- hot bottle - I would put hot bottle under the blanket (ensure it is not to hot) and put baby on it on his belly the warm and pressure from being on the belly would help the gas to come out

- time as the older he was getting plus the combination of all the above it all got better.

We have fund all those methods gradually but by 5-6 weeks we only seen individual instances of the issue.

Hope this will help x

[QT314]

Hi, sounds a lot like infant dyschezia aboutkidsgi.org/childhood-d...

It's basically when the baby can't coordinate the movement of their abdomen and pelvic floor yet so they contract instead of relaxing which makes it hard for the bowel movement to be successful. Learning to have bowel movements is part of the baby development and there us nothing wrong with the baby. For some reason many gp's don't know about this completely normal process and recommend medication which is absolutely useless. I'm actually starting to realise that many gp's don't know anything about babies. (Although to be fair one gp did tell me about it but she knew bc she had a daughter and did research herself).

My daughter has been going through this process for quite a while and although it's not pleasant to watch she should grow out if it soon as her digestive system matures. Usually by 3 months (if not sooner) they should have learnt this coordination.

In theory they don't feel pain when this happens but crying or grunting helps them with the process. I'm pretty sure they feel frustration especially when they can't sleep because of it but there's nothing to worry about (if it is indeed infant dyschezia). My daughter still does it with no success for a few hours until she finally has an explosive poo that I celebrate like the best thing she's ever done lol. Usually she manages to get it out and relax during a feed (breastfeeding at least).

Moving her legs towards her tummy helps relax her and usually stops the crying for some time, as well as holding her upright on my chest whilst rocking her. Breastfeeding calms her too and eventually helps her go so the episode is over!