[Staceybby]

Hey Ladies,
My DD will be 3 weeks old on Thursday and so far has been EBF. It is going awesome and I am loving every minute of BF her. However, she seems to be very gassy and she acts like it hurts her really bad. She turns beet red, grunts, and cries until she passes the gas and then she is peaceful again. I can't think of anything in my diet that would be causing her to be in this much pain, but I was looking for information on what you have found to cause your baby pain. I hate seeing her like this. Also, she has begun to spit up quite a bit, which I know spitting up is normal, but I'm worried about reflux. My DS had silent reflux which was a whole different story because he never spit up and it took us forever to diagnose what was wrong with him. She seems pretty content between feedings and doesn't cry or anything like she's in pain. She does grunt a lot while she is eating. But she grunts a lot period!

TIA,
Stacey

[LaLa]

The grunting sounds pretty normal - but the screaming might not be. If shes screaming & arching her back & acting like shes in pain - well she very well may be or at least be very uncomfortable. Some common things in your diet that might cause it are milk & tomatoes. Even if youre not drinking milk, it could be things in yur diet that contain milk that you might not realize contain milk. Remember whey, lecithin (sp?) etc are all milk products & contain the milk protein that can cause discomfort & gas in your baby. And the spit up. Tomatoes & other acidic foods can sometimes be the culprit as well.
You may ahve to experiment with your diet, there really are a variety of things it could be.

Some things you might try (other than cutting these foods out) is to take a digestive enzyme which will help prevent some of the proteins from passing into your milk. YOu can get it at a health food store. Also - gripe water - what a savior that can be.

Oh and btw - it takes 2 weeks for the protein in cows milk to completely get out of your system, so when you do cut it out - expect it to take up to 2 weeks before you see an improvement.

ANd of course - if youve tried all that - some babies are simply gassier & fussier than others. Their tummies are still adjusting to digesting period

Lala...

[rose198172]

The grunting sounds pretty normal - but the screaming might not be. If shes screaming & arching her back & acting like shes in pain - well she very well may be or at least be very uncomfortable. Some common things in your diet that might cause it are milk & tomatoes. Even if youre not drinking milk, it could be things in yur diet that contain milk that you might not realize contain milk. Remember whey, lecithin (sp?) etc are all milk products & contain the milk protein that can cause discomfort & gas in your baby. And the spit up. Tomatoes & other acidic foods can sometimes be the culprit as well.
You may ahve to experiment with your diet, there really are a variety of things it could be.

Some things you might try (other than cutting these foods out) is to take a digestive enzyme which will help prevent some of the proteins from passing into your milk. YOu can get it at a health food store. Also - gripe water - what a savior that can be.

Oh and btw - it takes 2 weeks for the protein in cows milk to completely get out of your system, so when you do cut it out - expect it to take up to 2 weeks before you see an improvement.

ANd of course - if youve tried all that - some babies are simply gassier & fussier than others. Their tummies are still adjusting to digesting period

Lala...[/b]

I agree. Just make sure that the gripe water isn't something that's been recalled... there was a recent recall on it.

[beck12]

My little guy was like this early as well. In the end he was diagnosed with silent reflux - but that truly was a separate thing from teh crying & fussing he did over gas. Gripe water worked for us great - TWICE...after that I saw NO effect at all. I read the happiest baby on the block by Dr Karp & that really seemed to nail a lot of what we were dealing with & it basically said that many babies have fussiness with gas once they reach an age to start to try & control bodily functions & movements...meaning basically - he felt the gas & his own natural response (which was incorrect) might be to tighten everything down (including his anus) and make passing the gas much harder on himself & therefor uncomfortable. He truly did grow out of having it bother him. Nothing I ever watched in my diet had any effect. I even had his Pedi suggest I stop BF altogether & give him Nutramigen. We didn't do that & today he is totally happy & toots without any issue...BELIEVE me does he ever! LOL