What is baby "spit-up"?
Well, spit up is when basically milk comes out and it could be from many different reasons. Spitting up in general is normal. All baby spit up and usually happens with burping or round burping because as the gas comes up the milk comes up as well. Spitting up always looks much more than it really is when spit up comes up it looks like more than they possibly could have even had for their meal. But in reality it's probably only a teaspoon or couple of tablespoons. So it's really nothing to worry about. There are times with spitting up that we want to investigate other thing that's when the spit up hurts them or bothers them.When does my baby's spit-up indicate a serious problem?
Doctor's get concerned when spit-up is causing your baby to be more fussy or it's bothering them when they spit up. In general, when babies spit up they spit up and they go about their business, they even may smile afterwards because it was a release of gas and that feels good. But there are some other causes of spitting up that need to be investigated. More severe reflux or painful reflux and certain allergies. So, with reflux that would show up as your child when they spit up they arch their back and get really fussy and scream, and they do this because the acid, as it comes up, hurts them. Now luckily only about one-third of reflux is painful. So we get concerned with reflux if it's painful to them, so that they're really miserable every time they spit up and it usally happens about fifteen to thirty minutes after feeding or they're spitting up so much that they're not gaining weight. So in that case obviously we would want to investigate, and if we think it's reflux, start them on a medication to help keep the food down. The other thing, of course, the first thing we do with reflux is just positioning. We mention keeping the head of the bed elevated at least at a forty-five degree angle, keeping their head elevated in your arms after feeding, just to use gravity to your advantage.
What medical problems could cause my child to spit-up during feeding?
One issue that we mentioned is reflux which will cause your baby to be fussy and remember that the majority of children who have reflux and reflux is very common just because the gastro intestinal track and the muscle tone is not good, is painless and babies grow and develop normally and we do no interventions. Another common cause of fussiness during feeding is an allergy and one of the common allergies we look for is called a milk protein allergy. Human milk is made out of a human milk protein. And the main formulas and it doesn't matter what the brand, is made of a cows milk protein similar to the milk we buy in the supermarket. And when we say someone is allergic milk we say they are allergic to the protein. This is different from than lactose intolerance. Lactose is a sugar found in milk that actually lactose intolerance in infants is extremely rare, unless you are born with a genetic deficiency in that enzyme. Lactose intolerance in general is something you gain later as you get older, so when were talking about allergy we are talking about a milk protein allergy. Infants with this usually you will see are really upset with feeding. They are taking the milk and their arching and their gassy and their really fussy during and around feedings, and it sometimes very hard to distinguish between that and reflux and just normal stretching, but they are really fussy with it. When we think a baby has a milk allergy and their on formula we change them to either a soy based formula so instead of the cows milk protein it is a soy protein or we change them to a hypoallergenic formula. A hypoallergenic formula basically what they do is they take the cows milk protein they break it up into little pieces and they wash them so they are easily digested. And depending how severe you child's symptoms are helps us differentiate whether will try the soy formula first or go right to a hypoallergenic formula, because up to 20-30 percent of children who are allergic to cows milk protein may also be allergic to soy. So sometimes we'll skip over that point. It just really depends on your child's symptoms.
