One of our grad students asked my advice about something her pediatrician said. Her baby is 2 months old, exclusively breastfed, healthy, happy, gaining well (also beautiful!), BUT she spits up a lot. She is fed on-cue (demand) but that usually means only every 3-4 hours. She does one big nursing between 10-11 pm and then sleeps til 4 am, nurses again and sleeps til 7. At the two month check-up last week, mom mentioned the frequent spitting up and pediatrician prescribed "Propulsid" -- a drug to make the breast milk move out of the stomach faster and into the intestines. Mom used it for a few days but it caused terrible diarrhea/rash and extreme sleepiness in the baby (both of which are listed as possible mild side effects). Mom asked for my advice. I determined that the baby nurses "like a barracuda" and that mom has very active let-downs that cause the baby to sputter, and that mom is usually engorged by time baby wants to nurse again, and that baby often "clicks" as she nurses. I recommended that she try to get the baby to nurse more often so she wouldn't be so hungry, to take her off the breast during the let-down and let it drip for a minute, and to make sure baby is deeply latched-on. I also recommended that she take baby off the breast after every 5 minutes or so and try to burp her. Sounds to me like the baby is swallowing a lot of air. She wanted to stop the medication, and I encouraged her to make up her own mind, talk to the doctor about the side effects, and basically not assume she HAD to do it just because the doctor prescribed it. Have any of you ever heard of this drug? Does it make sense to go immediately to a drug remedy for spitting up? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D. email: [log in to unmask] Anthropology Department phone: (409) 845-5256 Texas A&M University fax: (409) 845-4070 College Station, TX 77843-4352