What it feels like to have a baby with silent reflux

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Transcript

00:00 Baby is uncomfortable all the time.

00:02 Silent reflux. The doom of silent reflux.

00:09 It's reflux without the puking.

00:11 So what happens is your baby drinks their milk

00:14 and there's a little valve at the bottom of their esophagus

00:17 that opens and closes to allow the milk to go into their tummy.

00:20 I'm no health visitor, by the way, this is just my interpretation.

00:24 With babies with silent reflux, that valve is floppy or not working properly.

00:28 So when they finish their milk, it sloshes back up and down

00:32 and they're not necessarily sick, but the acid from their tummy comes up and burns

00:36 and they cry and cry and cry.

00:39 You can sit them up after a feed, which sometimes really helps.

00:42 You can lay them facing on their tummy,

00:44 so lots of tummy time is supposed to help to strengthen it.

00:48 But it can last for over 18 months, sometimes longer,

00:51 and it's just a really tricky thing to manage

00:53 because your baby is uncomfortable all the time.

00:56 There's lots of different medicines that the GP can give you to try

01:00 and we tried all of the medicines and ended up being referred to a paediatrician

01:04 and getting the gold standard, as he described it, which was called Omeprazole.

01:08 But it took Chloe a good two years to grow out of it.

01:11 I can tell you now, it was two years and four months

01:14 when she finally slept through the night.