The Why Behind The Cry

Author: Kristen De Deyn Kirk

Lissa Mcgrath, a mom from Ann Harbor, Washington, had a feeling the emergency room doctors were wrong. Her daughter, Rowan, just three weeks old, had been screaming for three hours.

"I was told I was a 'new mom'," she remembers.

Not convinced that Rowan was just crying out her emotions, she listened to a friend her told her to visit www.infantreflux.org. Lissa recognized many of the symptoms, circled them, and headed to her doctor's - and finally got some relief.

"He put her on Zantac. He told me if it's GERD, I would see a difference; if it's not, it won't hurt her. It took one dose. Just one. No screaming, no pain," says Lissa.

Her advice to others facing this problem:

Look at the list of symptoms, and even if your child doesn't have all of them, take the list with you to see your pediatrician. It's easy to forget something in the office.

Don't let people tell you "it's just colic." Colic can be a symptom of GERD, but GERD can be controlled with medication, where colic can't.

Don't give up. It's quite easy to control GERD with a few lifestyle changes and a minor medication. Some kids grow out of it by six to nine months.

Keep an eye on food allergies as GERD and food intolerances often go hand in hand. "We had much more of a challenge with the milk and soy intolerance than the actual GERD once we knew what it was," says Lissa.

She continued giving her daughter Zantac twice a day for about eight months. At one point, she also tried Reglan, but didn't find it practical because she breastfed her daughter on demand, making it impossible to give the medicine 30 minutes before a feeding as required.

Lissa also had Rowan sleep with a crib wedge, so that she was on an incline. Two other things she tried were Mylecon and Gripe Water, but neither was as helpful as Little Tummies for relieving gas bubbles.

Stephanie Brown from Portland, Oregon had no doubt that her two children had reflux, even though her doctor suggested she might be "overprotective and maybe a little neurotic" because her first daughter was a preemie.

"My older daughter actually aspirated the milk she'd thrown up and ended up in the hospital for several days," she says. "With my younger daughter, I recognized the symptoms when she was a day old. The pediatrician encouraged me to wait a few weeks to see if she improved as all newborns spit up, but by the time she was four weeks old, we'd scheduled an upper GI for her. We were told the procedure would take about an hour, but five minutes into it, the doctor said he'd seen enough. There really wasn't any question that there was a problem. The only question was how to fix it."

Zantac didn't help her daughters. She instead, under a doctor's guidance, thickened their bottles with rice cereal and other medications. Prevacid worked for her older daughter and Omeprazole for her younger one. Both still spit up during the day, but there was no milk shooting through their noses. Stephanie notes that they also cried less, napped better, and gained more weight.

Stephanie urges parents with a child who cries a lot, but doesn't spit up, to ask about GERD. They might consider a GI.

"It's much more difficult for moms with 'silent refluxers' because the babies are in pain and crying incessantly, but there aren't any outward signs," she says.

Breastfeeding moms who are concerned about medicine might try changing their diets. Jen Maidenberg from New Jersey did so to help her three children.

"We saw a great change in all our babies once I took troublesome foods - particularly egg, dairy, soy and wheat -- out of my diet," she says. Read about her elimination diet at www.mindfullivingnj.com.

Suzy Martyn from Cyprus, California is a daycare provider and parenting consultant who has seen many of her young clients - about 50 percent -- suffer from GERD. Those who don't want to use medicine, or want to add to the medicine's strength, might try these tips that she's seen help:

Dr. Brown's Bottles help reduced spit up and ease milk digestion because of the way liquid flows out of the bottle. "It reduces gas," says Suzy.

Giving smaller and more frequent feedings

Encouraging good burps while feeding

Propping your baby upright for 30 minutes after feeding and not lying him down immediately nor moving them around too much Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease has many different

symptoms, and your child may only have a few.

The most common symptoms include:

pain, irritability, constant or

sudden crying, "colic"

frequent spitting-up or vomiting

vomiting or spitting-up more than

one hour after eating

not outgrowing the spitting-up stage

refusing food or accepting only a

few bites besides being hungry

poor sleep habits, frequent waking

"wet burp" or "wet hiccup" sounds