Acid Reflux In Newborns:
The ONLY Way To Protect Your Baby

Can acid reflux occur in newborns? This is one of the most commonly asked questions by new parents. The truth is that most newborn babies have spitting up problems during and after feeds. Technically, it can be referred to as gastro-oesophageal reflux or infant acid reflux. But the important thing to be kept in mind is that in majority of the cases it is not caused by the same factors as those in adults. The spitting up occurs in infants during the first months of life due to physiological reasons and is quite normal. It is serious only if the baby spits up large amounts or with force or chokes on the regurgitated food, or fails to gain weight. Medical intervention then becomes necessary.

In newborns, the lower esophageal sphincter or the LES is not fully developed and so it is easy for the stomach contents to flow back into the esophagus causing acid reflux. Spitting up normally disappears by the baby's first birthday.

While every baby is different, there are many common symptoms of acid reflux in newborns. A baby may exhibit none, few, or many of the following symptoms. The number of symptoms exhibited may be unrelated to the severity of reflux: weight loss or poor weight gain, frequent spitting up, projectile and forceful vomit sometimes out the nose, sour breath, persistent hiccups or cough, excessive crying or colic, poor day and/or night-time sleeping habits, refusal to nurse, and poor feeding habits - arches back, stiffens or screams while feeding, prefers upright or inclined positions.

Before considering any medication, it is worthwhile to try out a few changes to see if they bring about relief from the above symptoms:

·         Keep babies upright while feeding and for at least a half an hour afterwards.

·         Position the baby on its back during sleep. Raise the baby's crib to about thirty degrees. This will reduce the regurgitation. Sleeping on his/her left side will help to keep the food down because the inlet to the stomach is higher than the exit.

·         More frequent feedings in smaller amounts will reduce the chance of refluxing. Filling up the stomach to capacity will increase the pressure and result in more refluxing.

·         Burp your baby while feeding and after feeding. Sit the baby upright and support its head. Air bubbles will rise to the top of the stomach in this position. When you burp the baby in the standard way, with the baby over the shoulder, you can put pressure on the stomach and increase the incidence of infant acid reflux.

·         Breast feeding has proved to be better than bottle feeding for reflux. The main reason is that breast milk is digested faster. This reduces spitting up, and it has special enzymes which help digestion. Additionally, breast milk does not cause allergies unlike other kinds of milk available in the market.

·         Do not make the baby wear tight clothes especially around the waist and the stomach.

·         Thicken Feedings: add 1-2 teaspoons of rice cereal to each ounce of formula to thicken it up. Stop if you don't notice any improvement in 3-5 days.

·         Provide a pacifier. Sucking a pacifier can increase saliva production. Saliva is alkaline and can neutralize some of the acid that may have been refluxed.

·         Massaging the infant has been shown to improve digestion and relax the baby.