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Welcome to Positively Parenthood, the podcast, your one-stop shop for non-judgmental, kind, and knowledge-backed parenting advice to help you thrive rather than survive on your parenting journey.
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I do hope you enjoy listening and find it helpful on this crazy roller coaster that we call Parenthood.
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Remember, listen to your gut and do what sits right for you.
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Your family, your way.
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I want to talk to you today in this bonus episode about solving your baby's reflux.
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Now, shall we first of all talk about what reflux actually is?
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Because I think for a lot of parents still, we all know that family or that parent who had the baby who like projectile vomited all over the place five times a day and had a really rough ride with that.
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And therefore, a lot of our thinking on reflux is that well, if my baby's not sick or sick very often, or very sick in terms of amount and quantity, then I don't think that they have reflux.
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But the issue and the the kind of reality of baby reflux is that it so often can also be silent.
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So we almost have like two types of reflux.
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The reflux that you'll see, and you'll see a baby who is either projectile vomiting a lot, and that will be very, very obvious, or just spits up now and then, which we call positing, but like spits up now and then, and it's a bit annoying, but like it's it's it's very much normalized, I would say.
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So projectile vomits spits up or doesn't.
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And the issue with I think labeling reflux is when I talk to clients about reflux, they kind of go to that place of like, oh no, gosh, worst case scenario, we'll have to, you know, medicalize it and whatever else.
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But it can be just silent reflux that you can't see, and at the margin is just bothering them.
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But because they seem happy and they're a fairly calm baby and a fairly happy baby, there's no kind of really obvious signs of it, if you like.
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So silent reflux would be the regurgitation happening up through from the stomach to the esophagus, and it kind of sits in the back of their throat, and that's why you can get babies who are kind of congested and a bit raspy and a bit nasally, but you don't actually really see them do much sticking up, as it were.
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And the thing about silent reflux is it's much harder to get on top of for obvious reasons.
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It is silent, you don't really see it, and therefore, lots of parents either don't know about it or potentially even dismiss it because they believe that you know, if it was reflux, they'd they'd be seeing a baby who was vomiting a lot of the time.
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So, two kind of different types of reflux, and I almost like to reframe it as regurgitation rather than reflux for that reason.
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Because when we talk about it on client calls, like I said, sometimes telling a client, like maybe there's a sort of level of reflux there, it can sound like either you're giving a diagnosis or you're putting a label on the baby, but the reality is it's just a symptom.
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So we're looking at your baby is experiencing some regurgitation, whether silent or otherwise.
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And if baby is experiencing regurgitation, we want to look at why that is.
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Now, there is of course the theory that it's it's kind of normal and babies will grow out of it, and it's all to do with the development of the muscle, which is an absolutely valid theory.
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Okay, and this is why, up until I would say five years ago, I've been working with babies with reflux for over 10 years now, but up until five years ago, the the kind of normal route, if you like, would be to go to the doctor and get some medication, and that was almost for most clients, especially when I was a nanny and I wasn't consulting as such.
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I would just be told baby has reflux, here's the medication, and maybe they're on a special milk and a special formula.
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What we know to be true now, and I think wellness has changed so much, health, well-being, you know, holistic advice on medical issues, if you like, has changed so much and has become more prominent in our worlds.
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What we now know for baby readfucks, in terms of my client base, I would say that there are two main causes, two big things that could be going on for your baby that could be contributing to their spitting up, their projectile vomiting, or their silent discomfort.
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And I say discomfort lightly because I don't want you to think they're in lots of pain.
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It could just be a little bit annoying and a little bit uncomfortable, and that is why they can't sleep quite often.
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So we want to look at two possible causes.
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We want to look at the two main causes being air intake, which we know to be um formerly known as aerophasia, which is essentially taking in air whilst they're feeding.
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Okay, so swallowing air whilst they're either breastfeeding or bottle feeding.
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Um, that's the first one we want to look at the first factor.
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The second factor being gut health, digestion, and/or allergies, and they are quite different.
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So a baby can have obvious allergies that could cause them to
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have reflux, and those could likely be for lots of the babies that we work with, they are delayed allergies, but they could also just have a really sensitive digestive system or a digestive system and a gut that was impacted by birth or antibiotics from mum or from baby.
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So we want to look at in your baby's history.
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First of all, we want to look at symptoms.
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So, what do we think?
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Does the baby have reflux or not?
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And if you're confused because you're like, well, they're not sick, but maybe because it just feels quite difficult.
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I would head to our website and download our free reflux symptoms checklist that has, I think, over 30 symptoms.
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They're also in my book, Your Positive Baby Sleep Book, which we'll find on Amazon.
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And what we want to look at is are they showing some of those signs?
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And they don't have to be showing all of them, it could just be five.
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Okay, but if you have an uncomfortable baby, you want to look at what are the symptoms, and then what are those symptoms pointing to.
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Okay, so for example, if you have a baby who has maybe mucus in their nappies, um, sometimes has green poos and has quite bad skin, I would likely be looking at the diet side of things first.
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So whether they're on formula or breast milk, is there anything that's bothering this baby?
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And therefore, that is in itself causing not only the gut symptoms of the mucus and the skin, but also the reflux that you think they're experiencing.
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So the symptoms around the obvious regurgitation help build a picture as to what's going on for that baby.
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If your baby is clicking on the bottle and having maybe very sort of frothy poo's or um struggling to burp, then maybe potentially we'd be looking at oral function and air intake.
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And when we look at air intake, we want to look at tongue tie, we want to look at tension, like body tension.
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So has baby been born with their shoulders up to their neck, and that kind of still is the case.
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And I used to see in my clinic when I had my office, I used to see babies come in, and I loved seeing them in person because the first thing I would notice is wow, like the shoulders are above the ears, they have no neckline, they have lots of creases, and they're still tense even at six, seven, eight months old.
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And it's working to release that tension.
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So air intake can be caused by lots of different things.
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Sometimes it's as simple as just a couple of visits to a cranial osteopath, other times it's a more complicated long-term program on looking at tongue function, maybe having a tongue tie release, possible lip tie, and going on a bit of a journey with exercises, which is not easy.
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Okay, so sometimes there is not necessarily, I think it's really difficult now not to think from all of the kind of commotion out there that there's not a magic fix to your baby's reflux.
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We often talk to clients who are coming to us for baby reflux about the idea of it being a journey and a journey within which sometimes it will improve quite quickly initially, but then there's like a longer-term outcome that we're working towards, especially with oral function, that's not going to happen really in the first six months and maybe even up to a year.
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So if we're looking at a baby who has, you know, even signs of colic, crying, arching their back, struggling in the evenings, what we want to check in on is what are the symptoms that we're seeing.
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So have a look at the symptom checklist, and also, therefore, you know, whilst making sure that there's nothing serious going on with a visit to your GP or your health visitor, at that point, then afterwards, if it's a sort of mild level of reflux, thinking about well, the two main causes are air intake and diet, and which one do I want to look at first?
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So I hope that's a really useful kind of quick but deep dive into the reasons for your baby's possible discomfort and reflux.
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And if you want to find out more, please do head to our online courses and also our consultations where we can help you in more detail.
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Thank you for listening to this episode.
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As a mummy of three and parenting coach, I really hope that you found the topics and advice shared in this episode useful and can pick out the information that feels and sits right for you.
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Don't forget to subscribe to be the first to hear about new episodes, and do head to our website positivelyparenthood.com to find out more about our online courses, consultations, and membership.
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See you next time.