Anti-reflux milk: how to avoid reflux in infants
Choosing the best anti-reflux milk or formula is just one of the parameters to consider to help the newborn resolve or avoid reflux and infant spitting up .
Neonatal gastroesophageal reflux is an extremely common problem in infants (both breastfed and formula-fed), but this does NOT mean at all that it is physiological, on the contrary.
It is NOT normal for your baby to cry and feel sick because he has a stomach ache, digestive problems or gastrointestinal problems.
Gastroesophageal reflux in newborns, like gas colic , is caused by an irritant and inflammatory condition of the stomach (and the gastrointestinal system) which can be PREVENTED (from pregnancy or the first days of life) and/or CURED .
If you think you can cure your baby's reflux with anti-reflux formula alone, in the vast majority of cases you could only make the situation worse (try it and believe it).
Unfortunately, most medical personnel think that by thickening the formula (anti-reflux formula), the milk will not flow back up into the esophagus and the baby will feel better.
I'm sorry to tell you that, in the vast majority of cases, this doesn't happen; I'll explain why.
Your baby is suffering from gastric problems and reflux because he is taking a type of formula 1 that he cannot digest; as a result, his stomach has become inflamed.
At this point, to help him digest the formula better, we give him an anti-reflux milk which is much thicker, heavier and more difficult to digest .
Do you think your baby's stomach will feel better?
While on the one hand, anti-reflux milk, being thicker, can help the child not to regurgitate it; on the other hand, it will create further stomach ache, belly ache and gastrointestinal difficulties (try it and believe it).
This is why, to treat reflux in a bottle-fed baby, you need to:
- choose the most digestible milk for the baby (often it is NOT an anti-reflux milk);
- know how to give milk to the newborn (position, rhythm, anti-colic bottle);
- let the stomach deflate (5-7 days);
- Massage your baby's tummy to release tension that has built up previously and slows down his digestion.
In this article I will explain how to choose the best anti-reflux milk, how to solve reflux in newborns and much more.
1. Anti-reflux milk: how to treat reflux in a bottle-fed baby?
Breast milk is the food recognized as the best for the growth and well-being of the newborn. In fact, WHO (World Health Organization) recommends exclusively breastfeeding until the child is 6 months old. Afterwards, it reports the importance of continuing to consider breast milk as a priority choice until the child is 2 years old and beyond.
However, if the mother has problems with breastfeeding, it is necessary to provide support and help also in choosing artificial milk. I would like to say, however, that it is possible to improve and solve problems related to breastfeeding and sucking with the right support for mother and child.
When bottle-feeding, you need to understand that not all babies are the same. Therefore, a milk may be more or less digestible and cause colic and reflux depending on the brand/composition of the milk.
Before going into detail about the parameters to evaluate when feeding your newborn with an anti-reflux milk , let's talk about how to understand if your baby has gastroesophageal reflux . In fact, identifying the presence of this problem will allow you to understand how to intervene correctly and not only in the choice of artificial milk.
2. Recognizing reflux: the symptoms
The most common and easy to spot symptom is regurgitation or vomiting in the newborn. In fact, this clearly indicates the milk rising from the stomach, to the esophagus and up to the mouth.
These episodes can occur shortly after feeding or several hours later, often in conjunction with irritability and crying on the part of the baby.
A newborn who suffers from reflux has difficulty digesting milk , takes a long time to digest and needs to burp frequently .
Other symptoms to understand if the newborn suffers from gastric reflux are:
- Slow and difficult gastric transit;
- the newborn has difficulty burping,
- the newborn has a lot of air in his tummy;
- Frequent cough;
- Hiccup ;
- Crying and irritability during and after feedings;
- He also suffers from colic and intestinal problems.
3. The real cause of reflux in newborns
As mentioned in the previous chapter, parents are often told that this is a moment that will pass because it is linked to intestinal or pyloric (valve in the stomach) immaturity .
Absolutely false !
After having studied these problems in depth and having successfully resolved thousands of cases of reflux in newborns, I can affirm that reflux is not at all normal or physiological, on the contrary.
Gastroesophageal reflux , vomiting and regurgitation in newborns (as well as colic) are caused by an inflammatory and irritative condition of the stomach (and of the gastrointestinal tract – see subsequent scientific studies).
To demonstrate what I just said, above I report a recent scientific study from 2018 (”Infantile Colic, New Insights into an Old Problem”, published in the journal Gastroenterology Clinics of North America) which demonstrates how gas colic is caused by an inflammatory and irritative condition of the gastrointestinal system.
In short, they took the baby's poop , analyzed it in the lab , and found increased levels of fecal calprotectin (an objective sign of intestinal inflammation).
The same factors that irritate and inflame the intestines, disturb the stomach.
Also because the milk (i.e. what the baby eats) first passes through the stomach and then goes into the intestine .
This is why colic and reflux often coexist in the same child.
4. Treatments and remedies for infant reflux: is anti-reflux milk enough?
The question we need to ask ourselves to understand how to resolve reflux is the following:
What irritates and inflames the stomach and intestines (of the newborn but also ours)?
The answer is simple: anything that is poorly digested by a child irritates and inflames the child's gastrointestinal system (just as it happens in adults).
Anything that is poorly digested by the baby causes both reflux and gas colic; this is why these problems often coexist.
To treat reflux in a bottle-fed baby, it is necessary to evaluate and improve 4 parameters . Let's look at them in detail.
- Types of formula and anti-reflux milk : all formula milks have the same nutritional values but some of these can be much less digestible than others, creating digestive difficulties and reflux;
- Type of bottle;
- teat type and teat hole ;
- Position of the baby while being bottle fed;
- Feeding rhythm by which the parent can guide the baby while bottle-feeding.
Types of anti-reflux milk and formula milk
Milk is the only food that comes into contact with the gastrointestinal walls of the newborn because he feeds only on this in the first months of life. Therefore, you will be able to understand how important it is to choose which brand and type of anti-reflux milk to give to the little one based on his needs.
A mother who, out of necessity or choice, resorts to formula milk should find help and support in the choice to ensure that her baby digests it well. In fact, low digestibility can lead to colic , reflux, dyschezia and constipation .
If you are reading this article, you have probably already given your baby formula but he is not digesting it, with the consequence that he has started suffering from reflux.
Unfortunately, most medical personnel think that by thickening the formula (anti-reflux formula), the milk will not flow back up into the esophagus and the baby will feel better.
I'm sorry to tell you that, in the vast majority of cases, this doesn't happen; I'll explain why.
Your baby is suffering from gastric problems and reflux because he is taking a type of formula 1 that he cannot digest; his stomach has become inflamed.
At this point, to help him digest the milk we give the child an anti-reflux milk which, most of the time, is much thicker, heavier and difficult to digest .
Do you think your baby's stomach will feel better?
While on the one hand, anti-reflux milk, being thicker, can help the child not to regurgitate it; on the other hand, it will create further stomach ache, belly ache and gastrointestinal difficulties (try it and believe it).
This is why, to treat reflux in newborns, you need to choose the most digestible milk for the baby (often it is NOT an anti-reflux milk), let the stomach deflate (5-7 days) and massage the baby's tummy to resolve the tensions that were created previously and slow down his digestion.