What is Reflux – Officially?

When the stomach contents are regurgitated. Usually in babies after a feed. Babies are left to grow out of it unless the reflux is affecting their growth or weight gain.

What is Reflux – A Parents View?

"My twin boys had severe reflux from when they were about three weeks old. All babies bring back a small amount of feed after a bottle or breast, my boys would vomit back approximately half a four ounce bottle, or so it seemed. We never knew when they would be sick, sometimes it was straight after a feed, other times it could be an hour later, sometimes they would vomit when they hadn’t had a feed for hours and it was always in copious amounts! We had to warn people not to wind the boys after a feed, just sit them up and hope for the best, winding them i.e. patting their backs or even rubbing them increased the vomiting!

The boys constantly wore a bib and I didn’t even bother for the first three months putting them into ‘clothes’ unless we were going out anywhere, around the house we kept them in sleep suits of which we had 36! And some days we would run out! We were constantly changing the boys! I could not get past my Health Visitor to see the doctor until one of the boys vomited at the baby clinic one afternoon, all over the Health Visitor, the table, the floor, himself, me, the scales and probably the baby next door to him as well! When she had recovered from the shock, the Health Visitor agreed that, Yes, that was quite severe. Was that an unusual amount? No that was normal! Then we got to see the doctor and we were prescribed Gaviscon. That worked for three days and then we were back at the doctors and we came away with a referral to paediatrician at Grimsby Hospital.

To cut a long story short, over a period of a year we were prescribed four different lots of medication to put into their milk. When the boys were having two different types of stuff added to their feeds and were vomiting even worse I stopped adding any medication at all, I had had enough. Nothing that we were being given was having any effect! The last lot of stuff we were given was to thicken their food and was a powder which turned into a jelly like substance when mixed with water which you then mixed into their food! Since the boys were eating sandwiches and other usual family foods this was not a lot of use! We just carried on mopping up and putting up with it!

The volumes of vomiting did decrease gradually and when the boys began to move around more it stopped altogether. We found that keeping them upright after feeds for a period of time helped decrease the amount that they vomited but other than that there was nothing else physically we could do!

To look at the boys now it is strange to think that they ever vomited as much as they did, they eat anything and everything and are never sick! At the time I never thought the vomiting would ever end and had visions of them going to school with bibs and umpteen changes of clothes! But it did stop and very suddenly, there is light at the end of the tunnel!"