My youngest son was born in January of 2008. About a week after he was born, my otherwise exremely healthy baby, started having some major spit ups.  It would usually occur ten minutes or so after he finished a bottle and it would seem like a ton.  My husband was always concerned that he had spit up his entire bottle and that he would still be hungry. (Not the case by the way...I know it looks like a lot but try to envision how much it would truly be if you scooped it up and put it back in the bottle. Gross I know, but even a floor full of spit up is only about an ounce of formula.)

That was all right around the time of his first Dr. visit, so we told the Doc about it. (He had eaten a bottle in the waiting room and spit up twice all over the place in the exam room.) When they noticed it coming out of his nose--yes, his nose--the Dr. said it was acid reflux and prescribed Zantac.

Ok, so I have a few thoughts, theries and ideas about baby reflux.... It seems as if more and more babies are being "diagnosed" with acid reflux and prescribed medication before other options are even tried.  I just wasn't so sure I wanted to give my week old baby Zantac for something I wasn't sure he had and wasn't sure it would even help. Now, I'm not one to refuse to treat my children for an illness or not follow Dr.s orders, but that kind of meds for a newborn was scary to me, so Idid my research first.

I checked online, www.WebMD.com, several parenting websites (if you type babies, acid reflux in babies or parenting into Google, you'll find all kinds of stuff.) and ead books. My personal favorite and the most helpful was Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care 8th Edition.

Dr. Spock describes Acid Reflux/gastroesophagel reflux as: "spitting up along with irritability, crying gagging, arching of the back, coughing or poor weight gain."

Apparently ,it's the archinig of the back that is the biggie. My son never really did any of those. He would cry some when it cam out his nose, and really wail when I had to use the bulb syringe to suck it out. But, I imagine it felt like when you laugh while taking a drink and shoot milk or soda out your nose...It burns!! No wonder he cried.  My son also had some trouble breathing, especially at night. He had a lot of stuffiness which could have been associated with the spitting up, some kind of problem w/ the valve or whatever it is between the nose and mouth. Or, it could have been fron excess birthing fluids still in his system. Either way, it was another little thing that made me think maybe we weren't dealing with acid reflux and held off on the meds.

Let me say, I'm glad I did. Instead of dosing him and hoping it worked, I changed the way I fed him. I started putting him in more of a sitting position. Laying down was an absolute no no for us! I thickened his formula (on Dr.s orders, mind you...see I listen, sometimes) with rice cereal. About 1tsp cereal to every 3oz prepared formula. We then adjusted accordingly, adding more or less until we got a combo that worked for us.  (I do not know if any or all of this is the same with breastmilk. I would assume yes, but I used formula) I also was vigilant about burping him. After every 1 to 2 ounces he took in, we stopped and burped and if we didn't get at least two good burps at the end, he would throw up. I also propped him up a little while he slept at night which helped with spitting up and breathing issues.

So, a LOT of detergent later, he grew out of it. Yes, by 6 months, he was no longer shooting formula from the nose and by 7 months he stopped spitting up all together.  It is a long road and VERY frustrating for the parents. But hang in there. The little changes we made weren't difficult to incorporate and made a big improvement immediately, plus we never gave him medicine. I don't want to encourage anyone to ignore their Dr.s or not give medicine to a baby or anyone else who needs it, I just want to share my experience. I have heard several stories of newborns diagnosed with AR, heard many examples of Zantac being prescribed. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. AS a parent, we each have to determine what is best for our own children. This is what was best for mine.

My son is now a happy healthy 25 lb 15month old who walks and talks and eats, and breathes, just fine. He never showed any signs of weight loss or distress through his ordeal, which probably would have been a different story.