Infant Reflux – Symptoms

Transcript

There are a few signs and symptoms associated with infant reflux, particularly the kind that’s problematic, which is very uncommon, but most parents and care providers can tell you the most common one which is, that they spit up. For most babies, this is something that they barely even notice. It typically doesn’t bother them, they split up, they go back to doing what they’re doing, they might even go right back to eating. It’s just a cleanup issue. For others, they don’t like the feeling and it can make them fussy. The feeling of fluid in their throat and fluid coming back up, it’s just really unpleasant, and it can make them fussy, congested, and they don’t love it. But typically it, again, doesn’t cause health issues. However, with a few very rare exceptions, and those exceptions are mainly in kids who have neurologic issues or who don’t eat by mouth who have other kinds of problems that are contributing to that, reflux is almost never dangerous to your baby. The exceptions that we see are when we have so much reflux, we don’t gain weight or it’s so unpleasant for the child that they don’t want to eat. And that’s when we start to have issues where we start to see failure to thrive. If you have reflux and failure to thrive, you definitely should see your pediatrician because there are things we can do to try to help. The other thing that we worry about is if your baby is vomiting with force. Reflux should be kind of like a little bit of a bubbling up, but it shouldn’t be a forceful projectile vomit. And if you are seeing that, you do need to see a doctor.