Following is Chapter 1 from Acid Reflux in Infants and Children

Acid Reflux
If you are reading this book, something is not right. Something is going on and you need help. Maybe your child is crying for hours, vomiting, or refusing to eat. Or maybe he or she is just plain miserable.

You may know that your child is suffering from reflux as a fact (from a physician) or you may just think or guess he has reflux, and want and need to find answers.

Regardless, acid reflux may be an issue in your life, and we are going to try to help you come to terms with it and get the help you need to improve the quality of your fam-ily’s life.

At the time we came face-to-face with acid reflux it was just beginning to be truly understood and diagnosed. Gastroesophageal reflux, or GER as it is more officially known, is a normal physiologic process that occurs in healthy infants, children, and adults. Almost all children and adults have a small amount of reflux without being aware of it. When refluxed material rapidly returns to the stomach, it causes no damage to the esophagus. How-ever, in some children, the stomach contents remain in the esophagus and cause damage to the esophagus lin-ing. The stomach contents can also go to the mouth and upper airway and cause a variety of problems.

Signs and symptoms of reflux may include irritability, sudden or constant crying, food refusal, sleeplessness, frequent infections, pneumonia, wheezing, and difficult or painful swallowing, just to name a few.

How Many Suffer?
Each year in the United States, about 8 million babies are born. The estimates of how many babies develop reflux vary, but the high end is approximately 35%. That means as many as 2.8 million babies may show signs and symptoms of acid reflux each year. Of those, about 2%, or 160,000, will develop complications due to the reflux.

Could It Be Colic?
Bluntly, the term colic may soon be officially obsolete. Colic has been used to describe pain and discomfort of unknown origin in the abdomen of babies. But now, as the medical profession gets a clearer idea of what is really going on, colic may be on its way out and acid re-flux may well take its place in many cases. We were once told that colic was a five-letter medical term for “we don’t really know what is wrong,” and from our experiences, we don’t doubt it one bit.

What Causes Reflux?
It appears there may be many reasons why stomach contents escape back into the esophagus. It took us about two years to finally learn that the cause of our son’s reflux is his allergic reaction to foods that he eats. It seems when Benjamin eats foods outside of his “safe foods,” his stomach refluxes. Other children with food allergies may show an allergic reaction by getting hives or asthma, or going into anaphylactic shock. One of Benjamin’s reactions is reflux.

Following are some other causes of reflux:

•    Immature digestive tract
•    Physical defect with LES (lower esophageal sphincter)
•    Forces on stomach that cause contents to es-cape, such as pressure from tight clothes and overeating
•    Items that can weaken the LES, such as second-hand smoke or spices
•    Disabilities

Treatment
We wish that this section could be a simple paragraph recommending a few steps that would cure your child’s reflux. Unfortunately that is not going to happen.

The treatment you find successful for your child may be simple or complex, quick or lengthy. So much of that de-pends on so many things.

Some common treatments for reflux are the following:

•    Time (research suggests most children outgrow re-flux by their first birthday)
•    Positioning (feeding and sleeping)
•    Feeding changes (formula, solids)
•    Medication
•    Surgery

Reflux is complex and so might be the solution that works for your child. One of the most important steps toward finding a successful treatment may very well be understanding what you are facing. We hope that the next several chapters may provide an insight.

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