Has anybody used Motilium to treat reflux for baby

[davidst01]

Hi there

We are in month 2 of our baby being born. She was born premature 35 weeks. After a few weeks she started bringing up a small amount of milk despite burping her.

A week ago she seemed to have symptoms of colic and we gave her a small amount of a natural medicine solution for colic that my family had posted over from back home. It had a bad reaction and caused her to throw up her milk 15 times.

Since then everyday she is now throwing up milk everytime after feeding. We have spoken to 2 drs about this. The first one gave us some Mortilum but we did not give it to bub after reading bad things on the internet.

Tonight bub is worse and we dont know if we should give it a go. Both dr's think she has refux. We purchased special bottles for colic to reduce chance of bub taking in air. My wife feeds bub with both formular and breast as she had issues expressing milk from the breast.

Any advice is appreciated. The 2nd dr said that we should only feed 60 mill of milk every 3 hours

thanks

[Sheryl]

1. You are absolutely correct to have not given the Motilium. It is not safe for use in a child that young. The manufacturer recommends using only in children aged at least 2 years and weighing at least 35 kg.

This being the case, i would recommend you stop using the doctor who advised it, since s/he is obviously not familiar with which drugs are safe for use in a small infant.

2. It is very common for babies to "spit up" small amounts of milk after feeding. If it is only a small amount of what was taken that is coming up then I would not worry much. If however what comes back is all or most of what was taken in, and/or if the baby is failing to gain weight, and if it is not improving (clearly there was an acute reaction to the "natural" medicine, see below, but that should gradually subside) then she needs to see a specialist in pediatric gastroenterology.

3. DO NOT give any "natural" medicines to the baby. These are not harmless or inert, they contain drugs and have side effects just as "modern" medicines do and safety in a small infant is especially doubtful - particularly a premature one. Remember that your baby's physiological age is more than a month less than her "official" age. In addition, since the active ingrediants are usually unknown, it is very difficult for doctors to properly manage adverse effects of such things...which I think is what is going on now. She is probably still ill from the effects of what was given a week ago.

If not already done, should probably have a blood test to make sure her liver and kidney function were not damaged by it. Babies that young are not able to detoxify things well. And please, under no circumstances give anything like that again, especially not in her first year of life.

For just "spitting up" small amounts, things that will help are:

- feeding smaller amounts at a time, more frequently. With practice you'll find out the amount that works best. Remember her stomach and other organs are smaller than would be the case n a baby of the same age (since she is in fact more than a month younger than her age).

- keeping her upright for as long as possible after feeding.

Beyond that, just buy a lot of bibs!

If she is really vomiting most of her feeds, as opposed to just spitting up a bit, and it persists, then better see a good specialist and be sure to provide the history of having given the ":natural" medicine a week prior. Where are you located?