Immature GI tract and reflux

[MommyGrim]

Hi all :wave:

The twins have, since we've been home, been having an issue with reflux. They are constantly throwing up/spitting up. We have probably 30+ burp rags around the house and they go through 2/3 of them every day. They don't just throw/ spit up small amounts either. It's usually large amounts. They soak EVERYTHING. I have to change their bedding daily and their clothes 2-3x a day, and I only change it when it gets really wet (which is usually just one throw/spit up event). We went to our doctor who said it was just reflux. (She initially thought it was an intestinal disorder but a sonogram ruled that out) She prescribed liquid Zantac for them, which helped (they spit up a little bit less often but the amount never changed) but didn't help a whole bunch. This past weekend their prescription ran out so we tried to fill it and our insurance said we had to wait until the following Monday (it was Friday) so we went the whole weekend without them having their Zantac and it was horrible They screamed their heads off all weekend I could tell they were in pain and once we refilled it on Monday DS stopped crying but the throwing up continued. Now DD2 has continued to be upset. She isn't as upset as she was over the weekend but she's still extremely upset. We saw the doctor again and she said to give DD Prilosec (which OH is picking up tonight) and see how that works. But something she also said was that DD probably had an immature GI tract, which she said is common among preemies. She didn't elaborate past that and I'm afraid to Google what that could mean for DD. Has anyone had an LO with an immature GI tract?

 

[sunnylove]

I'm sure immature GI tracks in preemies is very common and if she does have it, she'll grow out of it, so don't stress out about it.

My little one had reflux as soon as he came home from the hospital (how it went undiagnosed in NICU is beyond me). He spit up/threw up nearly every meal. Unfortunately I can't help much with the solution because he promptly stopped as soon as we switched over to exclusively breastfeeding and now it shocks me if he ever spits up. He didn't have terrible reflux though, and I think when we were bottle-feeding him, it had a lot to do with how we were positioning him. In NICU, speech therapy taught us how to hold the baby and the bottle while feeding, and I think that really helped and his reflux could have been a lot worse.

How are you holding the babies and the bottle when you feed?

 

[MommyGrim]

Sometimes I hold their head/neck in my left hand and feed with my right. Sometimes I cradle them and feed them. Other times they lay on our bed and we feed them that way. I've never noticed them spit up any less or more when we were holding them differently but I wouldn't really be looking for that either. How were you taught to hold them?

I thought that when we stopped supplementing formula they would stop spitting up as much since DD1 had SO many issues with formula and when I stopped BFing at 9 months, she had to have a special formula as she couldn't digest the milk proteins. It doesn't seem to effect the twins the same way though Once we stopped supplementing it had no effect on their spitting up at all.

 

[sunnylove]

Oh, to clarify, when we were bottle-feeding our LO it was expressed breastmilk, he's never had formula. But when I switched over to exclusively breastfeeding him, he almost immediately stopped spitting up. Babies suck in a ton of air when they bottle-feed, and almost none when they breastfeed so that could be a contributing factor.

We were taught to always keep him in an upright position when we bottle-fed him. Kind of like how we sit upright at a table to eat, babies need to be fed bottles the same way.