In the great classical novel “Dante’s Inferno”, hell is portrayed as nine distinct rings of immense suffering with each subsequent ring possessing an
increased level of agony for its inhabitants than the one before it. It’s an
excellent piece of literature, but I believe there is a tenth ring of hell that
Dante Aligieri neglected to add into his book, perhaps a mercy move intended to
shield the readers from an unspeakable horror.
Of course, what I’m referring to is living with an infant who
has acid reflux.
Okay, I admit that might’ve been a little hyperbolic, but maybe
if I tell my story, you’ll see how my description might not be so far from the
truth:
Prior to the birth of our 2nd child, my wife and
I came into the situation with what we thought were eyes wide open. We’ve been
through this rodeo before and while adding another kid to the mix would undoubtedly
be challenging (a few sleepless nights here, some stressful days there, etc.), we
figured that we’d be ready for whatever that might come. However, what I didn’t
expect was for him to have reflux and I certainly wasn’t prepared for the toll that it
would take on our entire family.
When our baby boy finally did arrive, the first week of life
was wonderful. He was a happy little squishy thing and the whole family was
beginning to settle in nicely with our new addition. I had taken off work to
help out the first week the baby was home, and we laughed because it felt like
a mini vacation. He was perfect. However, sometime during the second week we
noticed that things slowly began to change. Not only did he start waking up at
night more frequently, the length of time he was crying for stretched for
longer and longer periods. Moreover, the pitch of his cry was ear-piercingly
loud, to the point that our neighbors could hear him. At first, we assumed that
there was nothing seriously wrong and he was just doing what a baby does while experiencing
a bad case of colic, but deep down, I think we both knew that something wasn’t quite
right.
It started to feel like all the baby did was scream and
scream and it was virtually impossible to comfort him. Through desperation, we
tried everything that was suggested to us to console a “colic” baby
Car rides
Wrapping him up and going for long walks
Running the vacuum, or (if it was loud
you name it we ran it)
Rocking and shh’ing
Swaddling
Baby wearing
Bouncing on a yoga ball
Extra burping
Hazelwood necklace
Gripe Water
To our (and our neighbors’) dismay, the baby continued to
cry for hours on end. Eventually, this issue started to cause our family to
unravel at the seams. My wife, being a
SAHM bore the brunt of the consoling efforts and would constantly have to carry
him in order for him to stay calm. This aggravated an old back injury and she
has been working with a physical therapist in order to help relieve the pain. Our
older son, who is also home with his mom, started to noticeably misbehave more
than usual. The lack of sleep, coupled by stress, put a bit of a strain on our
marriage. There would be days that I would come home from work and my wife
would be in near tears from the utter exhaustion and frustration that came from
taking care of a baby that cried all day and an unsettled four year old. I
think the hardest part for all of us was the utter powerlessness we felt, since
our biggest responsibility as parents is to protect our children from harm, but
it seemed as though we were utterly failing at our duty. We knew that this couldn’t
go on much longer.
We turned to our pediatrician and the baby was ultimately diagnosed
with gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) and put on medication to help ease
his symptoms.
We thought this was the answer to our prayers, and while the
crying did decrease a small amount, we still had a “colic” baby on our hands. We
scoured the internet, consulted with family/ friends in order and were
determined to find a solution. We felt that there had to be a reason why he was
so uncomfortable and we no longer “colic” as the reason. Our hard work finally
started to pay off when someone suggested to my wife to start researching food
sensitivities in infants and since she was breast feeding at the time, she used
the process of elimination to determine which foods were the culprit and remove
from her diet:
dairy, wheat and eggs
With each elimination, we began to see a slight change in
our son’s demeanor. Slowly but surely we were again beginning to see the amount
of time he cried each night get less and less. We realized that the reflux was
in part due to an adverse reaction to those foods. With the suggestion of our
pediatrician, we also introduced our son to an Infant Probiotic.
We were starting to see a small light at the end of what had
felt at the time to be a never ending tunnel.
In addition to the food sensitivities, a friend suggested a
chiropractor that specialized in pediatric care. Call me crazy, but I had personally never
heard of an infant getting or needing a chiropractic adjustment. However, we
did our research and felt that it was worth giving it a try for the sake of our
son. To my surprise, the adjustments were gentle and the baby actually seemed
to enjoy them. After just few visits we again began to see a positive change
with even less crying and better sleeping.
It was beginning to feel like we were slowing regaining our
happy, smiling baby back and along with that, our sanity.
There were truly times when it felt like it was never going
to end, but giving up was never an option. In our difficult moments, my wife
and I found strength in each other in order to fight what was an ongoing battle
every day that no one could have prepared us for.
Our son is now 8
months old, and while my wife is still continuing to eat a gluten, dairy, and
egg free diet, he is slowly starting to show improvements every day and we were
able to completely take him off his daily medication for reflux. We have been
so thankful for all the advice and support that we were able to receive from family,
friends and online communities as well.
Dairy and other Food Sensitivities in Breastfed Babies: http://kellymom.com/health/baby-health/food-sensitivity/
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