When Your Baby Has Acid Reflux

You’re admir­ing your baby and mar­veling at how adorable she is when she spits up. No, she doesn’t do this to annoy you. She prob­a­bly has acid reflux. In med­ical terms, this is called gas­troe­sophageal reflux. Try say­ing this three times in one breath and you prob­a­bly will spit up your­self. So, why do babies spit up?

Babies often spit up because that valve at the base of their esoph­a­gus (For those who are clue­less about human anatomy, the esoph­a­gus is the tube that con­nects your mouth to your stom­ach.) is not well-developed yet. That’s why the foods they take in are regur­gi­tated and they become irritable.

Since you’re such a great mother, you prob­a­bly want to alle­vi­ate the dis­com­forts of acid reflux. Here are a few ways for you to do this:

First, you can have your baby sleep on a sling or a ham­mock. A sling or a wrap is a piece of cloth that you wrap around your baby so that you wear him or her. It’s a great fash­ion state­ment that says, “I’m a won­der­ful mother!” When you have your baby in a wrap or a sling, your baby nat­u­rally is in a posi­tion where his or her pre­cious lit­tle head is ele­vated. This pre­vents the food from com­ing back up. Of course, if your baby is too heavy or you feel like you have a gar­gan­tuan beer belly (or look like the Hunch­back of Notre Dame) when you’re wear­ing your baby, then you can have your baby sleep in a ham­mock instead. It works the same way.

Sec­ond, you can ele­vate your baby’s crib about 30 degrees so that his or her head is higher than his or her body. This med­ical advice comes from Dr. Sears. This helps your baby sleep soundly with­out being dis­turbed from regur­gi­ta­tion or acid reflux. Another trick is to have your baby sleep on his or her left side so that the stom­ach inlet is higher than the outlet.

The third method is to have your baby sleep on his or her stom­ach. But you must be care­ful because a lot of par­ents are afraid that sleep­ing this way causes Sud­den Infant Death Syn­drome. If you’re think­ing of using this method, con­sult your pedi­a­tri­cian first or buy those reflux wedge thin­gies that are avail­able in stores. The reflux wedge, despite its rather notorious-sounding name, actu­ally lets your baby sleep on his or her stom­ach at an angle which allows him or her to sleep more soundly.

Remem­ber, your baby will prob­a­bly spit up until he or she is six months. That’s the time when the valve becomes more devel­oped. If he or she spits up beyond that, he or she is prob­a­bly try­ing to prac­tice for the World Guin­ness Book of Records for the far­thest spit the ear­li­est. Now you’ve got your­self one ambi­tious baby there! You should be proud!