Hi, Im hoping for more help. My son continues to have poor intake and worsening GI upset. After he was discharged home from the NICU, his intake dropped dramatically and he cried and fought every feed. After a couple weeks of zantac we thought it was improving. While his crying and fighting decreased and his intake increased, he still isn't getting enough. He is on pumped breast milk with neosure to make 26 cal. He vomits (not spit up) with almost every feed, has really loud bowel sounds frequently throughout the day with no correlation to hunger or feeds, and is very gassy. He cries out in his sleep for no reason. We are doing as much as we can to help the reflux... Dr Browns bottles, stirring not shaking, prone positioning, holding for 45 min after feeds, elevating his head when he sleeps, zantac, mylicon. The doctor did a stool test and it was negative for blood or white blood cells.
So im wondering if anyone has had a similar experience. We are avoiding the docs office because everyone is sick and my son has bpd. Our ped called the pediatric gastroenterologist and he recommended the stool test. I would refuse an endoscopy because they would have to ventilate my son and im not letting anyone mess with his lungs and do more damage. I was thinking about trying an elimination diet but I would have to stop fortifying with neosure because it has milk and soy protein. I just want my baby to eat better. He should be taking 25-30 oz and he gets about 15 per day. He just doesn't want to eat.
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Little tummy trouble
- By JessicaK
- Posted November 3, 2009 at 11:05 pm · 5 replies
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- By babygirls24n2
- Posted November 3, 2009 at 11:46 pm
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Did he have NEC or is there any chance that he may have? My docs have said that scar tissue can show up later and cause problems from undiagnosed NEC at the beginning in preemies.
Our daughter is currently in the NICU at Mayo Clinic - after a belly flare-up, they have taken her off of breastmilk for now. In babies they cannot determine with certainty if tummy issues are milk/lactose allergies or if it is that their stomachs are not mature enough to digest the proteins in the BM. So they put her on a special formula and while it has given her a little bit of gas, she has taken off like a champ. they said it could be a couple months of strictly this formula and then we might be able to try mixing with breast milk (to use up what is in the freezer!). She is on Progestamil right now - and this has eased all of her GI issues just not having milk/fortifiers anymore. Might be worth a try..
- By violetsmom
- Posted November 4, 2009 at 1:46 am
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He sounds like Violet about a month ago. I still have a problem with volume, but I don't think it's the reflux anymore. It sounds like the cows milk protein may be bothering his stomach in addition to the reflux. Once I got the reflux under control with medication, she started in with colicky behavior at every feed. I stopped eating dairy and after about 2-3 weeks she was so....much better. She rarely fusses with feeds now. Also, zantac is not a very strong reflux med. I would see about going to a ped. GI who can offer more effective diagnosis and treatment. I demanded they send us to a GI because her Ped had no idea how to dose Prevacid and I had to suggest the med to begin with. She rarely vomits anymore and is in NO pain. Her GI also said that Mylicon is "crap" and use a gripe water instead. She recommends Colic Calm (on-line only) and it's the best investment I have made to date. Good luck. I hope you can get it under control soon. I know how frustrating and heartbreaking it can be.
- By Henrysmom
- Posted November 4, 2009 at 8:50 am
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It sounds to me like your son is still experiencing some discomfort. We recently switched drs and their philosophy is that kids do not eat b/c they are physiologically uncomfortable. Their first priority is to make kids comfortable, and then work on eating. Forcing calories is only going to make things worse and create other problems, like aversions.
I agree w/ Violetsmom, zantac is not a strong reflux med and often times does not work. Prilosec helped my son, but eventually Prevacid is what changed things for us. It took us 19 months to figure that out.
There are many things your drs should look into... slow gastric emptying, trying new reflux meds, allergies, etc. My son has a cows milk allergy. This can show up during a normal CBC w/ high eosinophil counts. They can also do an allergy test (my son was tested at 1yr). If you want to try an elimination diet, you can try other formulas to fortify. I would recommend using elemental formulas, like Neocate, instead of hypoallergenic, as hypoallergenic still contain milk proteins. You will also need to avoid those foods in your diet as well. Milk proteins pass onto BM (it takes 2+ wk for milk proteins to leave your system).
You may also want to consider using probiotics and digestive enzymes. Reflux meds reduce the acidity in the stomach. Its a catch 22... the acidity is supposed to be there for healthy digestion. Using probiotics and digestive enzymes can help counteract the low acidity. We saw a marked improvement in Henry's intake when we started using digestive enzymes. (Make sure you use enough... it will not hurt him and we started out too conservative to see a difference). SUPERMOM416 has started several discussions on the use of probiotics and digestive enzymes, so I would suggest going to her profile to find those discussions as there is a lot of good info there.
Good luck!
- By rocketboy
- Posted November 4, 2009 at 5:32 pm
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I don't have much more to add, but my son was very fussy with feedings also. We ended up taking him off the neosure and just going with straight breast milk. It really did make a different with his feedings. He's still not drinking a ton, but he's more consistant and we don't have to force feed him so much. Now the test will be his weight check at 6 months!
- By JessicaK
- Posted November 4, 2009 at 9:11 pm
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We did try just breast milk for a few days, but I realize it will probably take longer to get out of his system.. His intake stayed the same and I got so worried about not having as many calories. My dr is lame and i dont want to go in and expose my baby to the swine flu waiting room for a GI consult, I have already asked several times and the most he did was call the GI doc who recommended a stool test and switching to prilosec. He always tolerated his tube feeds well when he was tiny in the nicu and they did daily stool occult blood tests so I dont think he ever could have had nec. the recent stool test was negative for blood and white blood cells and that was all they tested for. What do blood and wbc's indicate? infection obviously, but would the stool have blood or wbc with an allergy? His stool test was negative, so what can we rule out?
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