If your baby is not spitting up and crying - your baby is NOT NORMAL

After feeding, your baby spits up a big mouthful onto you or the floor. The spitting is followed by CRYING. The spitting and crying is taking its toll on you………………..

Your baby is an eating, pooping, crying machine. You are tired all the time, because your infant is eating every few hours, even at night. Your days and nights seem to blur together.

Sometimes after feeding, your baby spits up a big mouthful onto you or the floor. There is so much “spit-up”, you wonder if there is anything left in their stomach. Sometimes the “spit-up” looks like milk, sometimes it looks like cottage cheese.

The spitting is followed by CRYING. And then more CRYING.

The spitting and crying is taking its toll on you………………..

Babies cry and regurgitate. Some more than others.

THIS IS NORMAL.

Disturbing – sometimes. A medical problem ?

The medicalization of baby spitting

Moms worry, the crying and spitting could be a sign of something dire, even though baby is hitting all the normal milestones.

Best to have it checked out !

Your doctor listens to the story…………….. and gives his diagnosis.

Your little one is suffering from gastroesophageal reflux DISEASE or GERD. The problem, the little valve that connects the stomach and oesophagus is not closing tightly. This is allowing the stomach contents to travel back up. This is what is being spat up and is responsible for the discomfort.

Odds are your little one will outgrow it.

The words you heard…………………

Gastroesophageal reflux DISEASE

Your little one has a DISEASE !

And, as a responsible Mum, you should treat it.

The treatment of choice for gastroesophageal reflux disease is a script for a proton pump inhibitor, such as Nexium® etc.

So you begin medicating your little one.

You’re not alone, more and more babies, under the age of 1 are being diagnosed and treated for GERD.

Does it help ?

The acid test

Actually……………. NO.

There is no evidence that babies who take acid suppressing meds

Regurgitate less
Cry less

They do produce less acid.

Which on the surface, sounds like a good thing………………..less acid, less trouble.

Mmmmmmmmmm…

Not so fast, acid is necessary for proper digestion. It helps extract a whole host of goodies from food, including nutrients such as calcium and vitamin B12, which are rather important for a growing baby.

So why are we medicating ?

This is the question a group of researchers from Ann Arbor, Michigan asked ?

To find the answer, they surveyed parents visiting a busy paediatric clinic in Michigan. Whilst the parents sat in the waiting room, they were given a hypothetical clinical scenario, much like the story at the start of this post.

In their experiment, they made a tiny modification to the story, so there were two versions of the story, half the parents heard version 1, half the parents received version 2.

In version 1, the doctor diagnosed gastroesophageal reflux disease
In version 2, the doctor didn’t actually label the problem, he just described what was wrong

They were then asked, if this was their child…………. would they medicate.

The disease diagnosis

Is the red flag.

Parents who received a GERD diagnosis were interested in medicating their infant, even when they were told that the medications didn’t work.

So…………..don’t fall in the trap.

Your little one does not need a proton pump inhibitor !

Spitting-up is NORMAL

Baby’s digestive tract is still developing , one of the consequences of this, is the valve between the stomach and oesophagus is weak.

It’s not a problem, it is normal.

This sphincter is just a little slow coming on line. It will eventually, figure it out………………. and your baby will outgrow the problem.

Giving your baby, a medicine that suppresses acid production, could lead to REAL PROBLEMS, down the line. Proper digestion depends on stomach acid being PRESENT.

Influence of “GERD” Label on Parents’ Decision to Medicate Infants. PEDIATRICS (2013) 131(5) :839-845. Laura D. Scherer, Brian J. Zikmund-Fisher, Angela Fagerlin and Beth A. Tarini.