Our little girl came into this world in a magical, empowering way. I had a c-section forced on me to deliver her twin siblings six years earlier....but I was determined to avoid history repeating itself....and I succeeded!!
However, when she was not even a day old we had seen her gulp like we witnessed so much with the older kids. That was quickly dismissed by others as 'impossible', since she was so young...
Fast forward to when she was two weeks old... we had some "challenges" to say the least in those first two weeks. Tongue tie, mastitis and upset from antibiotics to treat the latter, it was really tough on us all... but we were getting back into the rhythm of having a newborn in the house.
I'm not sure whether the antibiotics triggered the sudden worsening, I suspect so... but when she was 13 days old, she stepped up her reflux signs. Having had antibiotics in her system for nearly a week, that seemed to tip her over the edge. She was screaming day and night. Sleep was impossible for her and us (the adults anyway)... she had to be held completely upright to have any chance of it. Or I had to take her to bed and feed her all night. It was disturbed sleep, but, sleep. So extraordinarily tired on her two week "birthday", I reached out to my facebook friends, and someone made a suggestion...I was already going to cut dairy out of my diet, as the twins I knew had reacted there. I also reduced soy where I spotted it. I was given the tip of cutting out wheat too.
Within a few days, she was considerably better. She could at least sleep in her bassinet some of the time now, but almost always after I fed her to sleep. Almost always she slept on/near me. Anything to let her rest really...!
A bit of trial and error in there found some more foods to add to my banned list. Cabbage being number one! I accidentally ate some mixed salad that had cabbage in it, by day three of that, she was vomiting about 40-50 times per day, constantly feeding to try and make up for what she was losing and the pain of vomiting so much... I felt rather stupid the moment I realised that cabbage can upset the bellies of any baby, let alone one who is clearly sensitive to the food I eat.
Something I never used with the twins to help reflux was Infant Gaviscon. I always had dismissed its use as being a band-aid measure that really wouldn't help much... PPIs the go I thought. The 'strong' drugs. When I saw the GP when she was about 2 weeks old (for her standard checkup), I mentioned that she was refluxing quite badly, but that I wanted to try other things before medication. He said that he always suggested people try diet etc but also to keep it under control with the Gaviscon before going onto the other products. I surprised the pharmacist when I asked for it for her, such a young baby... but alas it became our friend pretty quickly.
This game of food 'watch' continued until she was four weeks old. I had had enough. I couldn't cope with it any more - she was better than she had been, but in the mean time I'd had some more post-birth complications to deal with as well as her reflux not settling... off to the GP we went. I remember the conversation with a friend around this time... wise words. Suggesting that while I can exclude foods, and do all the non-medication things to help reflux... some babies have valves that dysfunction and cause reflux - not necessarily through any other cause. Medication can help those babies to have more normal existences... it doesn't reflect on my efforts to that stage, but that maybe I need to medicate to help her fully. [I had been trying to avoid the medications if I could...!]
That day, she was great all morning into the early afternoon, but just when I got to the GP, she started to cry... that continued the entire visit, also added by a gulping silent reflux, plus some outward spew just to add to it. He was quite obliging to agree that she had reflux and medication was needed beyond the Gaviscon. Hallelujah! I went in a bit prepared for a battle because our useless old GP would have told me it was in my head and that she was a normal baby because she cried and writhed around in pain all day.
Within a week, MUCH happier, able to sleep a little better. It probably took me a good fortnight to see the omeprazole (commonly prescribed as losec) doing its job. If you ever need to dose a baby with losec, I suggest getting it in this form... omeprazole. SO much easier to dose than dealing with the tablets, getting compounding chemists to do the solution up (potentially full of colours and flavours which can irritate babies)... quick, effective and relatively inexpensive. Nice combination...!
Her weight gain to this point had been hit and miss. Early on - great... mastitis hit me and it became not so great. The reflux increasing... even worse. At one stage she put on about 100g in ten days. Most babies at that age are gaining a few hundred grams per week - its their rapid weight gain period. She had always shown up as quite small relative to average throughout scans and the like, and it seemed that this was going to continue for quite some time.
When she was a little over 2 months old, I couldn't cope with our sleep patterns in the day anymore. Nights had surprised us and by 6 weeks old she was doing 8-10 hour blocks sometimes, but in the day I would get a couple of naps out of her if I was lucky. Normally on me, at my wits end! As soon as I would put her down (in her elevated bassinet), she would scream like I was hurting her. So I heard of a sleep talk held in our local area which I could talk to someone and get some hints from.
I have to say here...just because you have had a child/ren before...never assume you have anything worked out at all! We have been thrown for six with this little girl...and thats after surviving twins!
Pride put away, I listened and came away infused with ideas...we had immediate success with small changes to our routine and methods...first thing being, her being in a cot, not a bassinet. It worked! We certainly have had wakeful days since, but we started to get proper sleep patterns when combining new and old techniques.
(continued in June 2013)
About a month went by and we had improvements but she wasn't happy, she was growing very slowly and all wasn't right...so, I let my Mummy Instinct win and got a referral to a private Paediatrician.
What he said has changed our lives.
It is covered in another post that I've done, so I'll link to it instead of duplicating everything... lots of this post is in common with the other, but, both need to be said for the different contexts that will follow...
Labour was the easy bit...
.......................
So..... the suspected diagnosis was Eosinophilic Oesophagitis...
Not able to be confirmed, but even if it was, the treatment would remain the same until she is older...
At the conclusion of the Paed visit, I was told to come back to him with her about 6 months old and at that stage we would probably need to see a Paediatric Gastroenterologist to discuss treatment, food going forward and so forth. Other than that... see you later.
<insert crickets chirping here>
I was numb from so much information. I couldn't believe it.
From around that time I went onto the "Top 6" (or often called "Top 8") Elimination Diet. I then later added, or as it happens, took away, a lot more foods when I went into the full 'FAILSAFE' diet as well. We worked out over time that she was extremely sensitive to amines and salicylates and that these chemicals, among other things, were causing her to be restless and unable to sleep, rest etc, despite her being on an adult dose of medication for her reflux.
For now, see you later!
