Baby Spitting Up

Hi S.,

A little spit up is normal. A lot is not. Mendy mentioned her child had a problem digesting food. This is fairly common today and I'm afraid antacids like prevacid make it worse. Stomachs are to be acidic in order to digest food so the food can get out of the stomach and go to the next part of the digestive tract. When you remove the acid with an antacid, the food does not digest and it stays in the stomach to cause other problems like reflux and spitup and can even do damage to the stomach.

I KNOW that the Prevacid is very commonly prescribed but it actually will "train" the stomach not to produce acid and will cause other issues later on. I've studied this a lot and have actually been a victim of antacids. I now have my digestive tract working as it should but the problems were caused when I was a kid and the doctors put me on antacids.

If this makes any sense at all and you'd like more specifics, I'd be glad to help.

M.

Hi S.,

I agree with suggestions about the chiropractor and waiting to give foods. Reflux is often associated with food allergies, and you say he is on formula and that's not exactly easy to digest. Drugs are unfortunately quite overprescribed and can almost always exacerbate the problem (dealing with symptoms and not paying attention to the ROOT of the problem) As a mom, be a good detective and do some research on alternatives to drugs. I highly recommend a book called "Perfect Health for Kids" by Dr. John Douillard. It's a holistic, Ayurvedic approach to health and it's very easy to follow. Also, there are many herbs that are safe for babies that may greatly help the reflux by correcting the imbalance in the system.

Love,
C.
www.LostRiverNaturals.com
Organic Herbal Care

I have an 8 month old son and even though he does not have reflux (or if he does has not been diagnosed with it) he still spits up all the time. It does not seem to bother him -- he just smiles and continues playing or whatever he was doing. If he is otherwise gaining weight and the spit up does not seem to bother him, then he is probably fine and just one of the babies (like mine) who spits up all the time. Ask your ped about it, but mine assured me that since my son is gaining weight and does not seem to be bothered by the spit up, then it is really a laundry problem and not a medical problem. Good luck.

When we first started my little one on solids, we started with rice cereal between four and five months. The first time, he seemed to do well and then about 2-3 hours after eating he would start throwing up. We held off for a week or two and then tried again. This time we gave him less and he seemed to do very well. Once again, about 2-3 hours after eating he started throwing up again. Our pediatrician explained that rice allergies are very rare but do exist and this is exactly how babies react with rice allergies. He said he likely grow out of it by the time he was two but try oat cereal instead. He did great with that. We started slowly and after no reaction, we gradually increased the amount and no more throwing up after eating. Then a few months later, the same thing happened again. By this time he had moved up to stage 2 jar foods. After reading the label very careful, we noticed one of the foods--something like chicken and broccoli--had rice starch written in tiny letters. We tried to read all the labels but occasionally things would get past us that we thought we had previously screened. Each time, he would start throwing up about 2-3 hours after eating. What made it difficult was finding rice starch in things one would not suspect, such as guava dessert, spaghetti, macaroni and beef, Hawaiian fruit delight etc. Also, makers of baby food labeled their foods similarly but used different ingredients making it confusing to remember which Chicken and carrots (and other combos)had rice starch and which did not. He never had reflux nor any problems burping so his allergy may be completely different from what your child is experiencing but throwing up several hours after eating was the main reaction the pediatrician said to look for in determining a food allergy at this age.

Hi Stacy,

I wonder if your sons stomach muscles are not developed yet. My daughter used to do that too until after her stomach muscles developed. You might want to definitely bring this up to his doctor.

My son had horrible reflux (it went away at around 13 months old). I discovered that it didn't matter what he'd eaten last. If he started spitting up about 3 hours after a meal, it was because he needed to eat again. His stomach was empty enough that the digestive juices were irritating him and he'd spit up.

My son did the same thing too, I would just give it some time. He is on Prevacid also and he is 9 months old now and he has just now started keeping all his food down. I think it is just the fact that there is a new texture of food involved. The reflux is just reacting to that. Our GI doc upped my sons dose of Prevacid to 7.5mg twice a day and that helped a lot.

It sounds to me if he is mostly spitting up food that he just isn't quite ready for food yet. Just because Drs say you CAN give food so early does NOT mean that you SHOULD or that you HAVE to. There is a ton of evidence and research out there that waiting and holding off on food is actually better and less likely to cause food or weight issues in the long run. Actual food in the first year of life is supposed to be more for exploration purposes not actual nutritional value. My 4yo didn't have food until he was about 9 months old and it was then that he actually reached and grabbed something from my plate and put it in his mouth and even after when I would offer him food it wasn't meant to 'be a meal' my 2 yo on the other hand had no interest in food until just shy of a year.

Hi S.,
Have you ever considered chiropractic care for him? Do you know that refllux can be caused by the cervical region (neck) being misaligned which puts pressure on his esophagus. This then leads to an increase of pressure on the diaphragm of his stomach and could certainly make him spit up hours later. The greatest misalignment of our spines is at birth. Please have this checked out by a chiropractor. It is very easy to fix and will save him from a lot of problems. If the true 'cause' for this is not corrected, it will only lead to things like more acid reflux, GERD, erroded esophagus and countless medications. Chiropractic is safe for all ages and there is tons of research on how benefical it can be for this condition. Please contact me if you would like more information.

My youngest son, now 2, had DGE (delayed gastric emptying) and would spit up like that all the time no matter when he had last eaten. His gastroenterologist discovered this during his endoscopy. He hadn't eaten in over 12 hours but still had food in his stomach. He just wasn't digesting it like he was supposed to so when he would eat again later on, the food had nowhere else to go but up.