Pat,
>Dear Anna, you can diagnose GER, but if everything is OK (wt.gain, no
>respiratory sx) then it is a "spitty" baby, period.  No need for
>intervention.

Yes, you're right, but call me an over-anxious mother! ;-) My first baby
had been so difficult, screaming for up to 18 hours per day, out of 24,
not gaining weight adequately, constantly miserable and I seriously
worried she had something really wrong with her. But I got no
satisfaction at all from the doctors, only many recommendations to put
her onto soy formula (I must have the Soy Formula King for a doctor!)

When my third baby began exhibiting the same symptoms, with that history
behind us and two toddlers to cope with as well, I don't mind telling
you I was sick with fear. Having failed to get any reassurance from the
doctors I was actually supposed to consult, I consulted a friendly Ped
of my acquaintance. When I was told it was almost certainly Gastro-
oesophageal reflux, it was as if a weight was taken off my mind. I
didn't think it meant he was ill, rather that he had a "difference" that
I had to deal with. Maybe I am extrapolating from my own experience a
little too much? :-(

>Positioning after feeds helps a little, but having a wash
>rag handy helps the most!  And I agree that dx of GER is much preferable to
>"allergic to your milk".

Guess what? I bumped into another mother today who told me she put her
8mo on the bottle because he was "allergic to her own milk". He got
worse, so after a couple of days of clearing up formula vomit, she went
back to breastfeeding. He almost certainly had GER, but the crisis was
caused by a guardia (sp?) infection which took a year to diagnose.

> One of mine was a "spitty" baby, unsettled,
>roly-poly, etc.  I definitely think, in retrospect,  it was an oversupply
>problem combined with reflux.

Yep. Does it make you feel better knowing that? I suspect one of the
reasons many of us spend so much mental energy trying to work out "what
went wrong" in situations like this, is that we feel that maybe our
mothering was at fault. Babies are "supposed" to be cheerly little,
content things that lay smiling in a baby carriage; not inconsolable,
irritable, infinitely demanding creatures that "reward" you by chucking
up all over you at the slightest provocation!
--
Anna H.
mailto: [log in to unmask]
http://www.ratbag.demon.co.uk/anna/

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