Acid Reflux in Infants - What Causes It?

Acid reflux doesn't just affect teenagers and adults it can affect young children too. And it can cause them the exact same problems for the exact same reasons. An adult can recognize this happening and do something about it whereas a parent has to try to decipher what's wrong with their baby. The odd thing is that heartburn in babies is actually quite common and isn't anything to freak out over.

As children are growing and developing their muscles and internal organs are growing with them and the stomach is part of this process. As the stomach develops it can only handle a certain amount of food at any one time so it can be quite easy to overfeed a baby by accident. Breastfeeding and giving your baby formula doesn't cause reflux so anxious moms shouldn't feel guilty here.

Grow Out Of It Watching your baby suffer from heartburn is distressing for parents to say the least. The good news is that most babies will outgrow this problem by the time they're 18 months old. Why? At 18 months your childs stomach and digestive system should be fully developed and capable of dealing with the reflux properly. If, after 18 months, your baby is still suffering from reflux it's a good idea to make an appointment to see a doctor to make sure everthing is ok with your little one.

The big problem with acid reflux in infants and babies is that it's hard to diagnose whether or not your child has this problem in the first place. This is true of everything that makes your baby ill - they can't tell you what's wrong so you have to guess a lot of the time.

You have to listen to the type of crying they're doing to have any hope of figuring out whether or not they're hungry, uncomfortable or both. Whenever a baby cries, it might want a feed, some affection or a change of diaper, and so whilst one of the signs of infant acid reflux is irritability and reluctance (or even outright refusal) when you try to feed the baby, this is not a good indication by itself.

How Can You Tell If It's Acid Reflux? One thing to watch out for here parents is if your child is constantly vomitting or spitting. The nasty taste caused by reflux will probably make your little one spit more often than you're used to so that's one giveaway for the presence of acid reflux.

Sometimes holding your baby in a tilted position while feeding them and putting them for a nap in a slightly elevated position afterwards can help too. You're just allowing gravity to help with their digestion.

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