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Home › Articles › Overcoming Difficulties › Nature's Antacid

Nature's Antacid

Breastfeeding a Baby with Gastroesophageal Reflux

Advice for New Moms

By Gwen Morrison

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Breast milk not only provides the appropriate nourishment to ensure a child's optimal health and development in the early years, breast milk can be a means of comfort for babies with gastroesophageal reflux (GER).

What is It?
Many babies spit up after feedings, so how does a parent know if their child has reflux? "GER occurs when the muscle at the entrance to the stomach fails to keep the stomach contents in the stomach," says Dr. Gregory White, a La Leche League (LLL) medical advisor from River Forest, Ill. "It can be frequent and painful. The milk, along with acid from the stomach, backs up into the lower esophagus and irritates the tissues there."

In adults, GER is easily recognized as heartburn, but babies can just end up uncomfortable and miserable. "Some babies spit up; others cry or act as if they are in pain," says Dr. White. "Physicians used to dismiss these symptoms as colic, something which they could not explain and parents just had to survive. Now they believe that at least some of the cases of unexplained, inconsolable crying may actually be reflux."

Diagnosing GER can also be difficult because the symptoms can be different for each child. Frequent burping, spitting up or projectile vomiting are some of the more common symptoms of reflux, but there are others. If a baby is not gaining weight, having difficulty swallowing, nursing constantly or has a total disinterest in nursing altogether for an extended period of time, it should be looked at more closely by a medical professional.

"I breastfed my daughter for the first four months of her life," says Erin Flanner of Montgomery Village, Md. "With the reflux, we seemed to do nothing but breastfeed. My daughter never slept, and she would want to nurse for comfort but it would then cause her pain."

Answers for Moms and Babies
"Just as adults who have heartburn want something – crackers or milk – to ease the pain, so do babies," says Mickey Forte, a certified lactation consultant at Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women in Memphis, Tenn. "As a result, these babies usually want to nurse frequently. In these cases, it's a good idea for moms to let the babies nurse on one breast for at least two hours before switching to the other side. This way the baby gets an adequate amount of hindmilk (more substantial milk, which is higher in protein and fat) as opposed to foremilk, which is higher in lactose." Too much lactose can produce a fussy and a gassy baby.

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