my baby sometimes gets really frustrated and I can't seem to help her out. my mom's friend says she has bad gas and gave me this bottle of gas relief drops, but I don't know if I should use it or not. I have a few times when it seemed to be really bad (usually at night when I nurse her and she kicks and pushes at me and grunts and cries) and I think it helped, but I don't know if I should be giving her this stuff...
Try laying her on her back on your lap. Gently push her legs into her tummy like she is riding a bicycle. That has always helped get the gas out of my babies. Also, the only way I could really burp them was to lay them on my lap face down and rub and pat her back while applying gentle counterpressure with my legs. I never used those drops-what's in them?
Carboxymethylcellulose sodium, citrtic acid, microcrystalline cellulose, natural apple flavor, natural banana flavor, purified water, sodium benzoate, sorbitol, xanthan gum. active ingredient: simethicone
That really doesn't sound like something I'd like to have in my newborn...try the bicycle motions with her legs and see if that helps...pay attention to what YOU are eating too...somethings may not agree with her tummy...
yeah that's why I didnt think I should be giving her those drops. I don't know what any of that stuff is. . How do I tell if something's upsetting her stomach? I eat pretty much the same stuff every day. I'm trying not eating so much dairy.
"Simethicone, is an oral antifoaming agent used to reduce bloating, discomfort and pain caused by excess gas in the stomach or intestinal tract. Chemically, simethicone is a mixture of polydimethylsiloxanes that works by reducing the surface tension of gas bubbles, causing them to coalesce into larger bubbles that can be passed more easily by belching or flatulence. Simethicone is not absorbed by the body into the bloodstream, and is therefore considered relatively safe with sources reporting the worst side effects as bloating, constipation, diarrhea, gas and heartburn. It is sometimes mistaken that Simethicone reduces belching or flatulence, but rather it can increase the rate at which gas leaves the digestive tract which could cause an increase in belching and flatulence" -Wikipedia
most babies are gassy. It's usually not a big deal. If she's screaming in pain, look into completely and totally eliminating all dairy, including casein, from your diet for a month or two and see if that helps. What is your mama instinct telling you?
For some reason the bicycle-leg thing never worked with my kiddies. I did try eliminating dairy & all other "gassy" foods from my own diet & that helped some, but not completely. What helped when they became unbearably uncomfortable & were balled up with hard tummies, was to pop them into a warm bath. The heat on their bellies somehow helped to loosen the pressure. Other friends have sworn by Baby's Bliss Gripe Water. I didn't discover it until my kiddies were too old to use it, but the active ingredients are: Sodium Bicarbonate, Ginger Extract & Fennel Extract. Perhaps someone with more medical knowledge could say whether or not this would be safe??? love, mom
thanks for that. sometimes I forget to trust myself. well I think I'll just stop eating dairy products. I read somewhere that vegetables can give gas, but I just don't think I can cut out dairy AND vegetables. what would I eat? fruit and bread? I think I need a much bigger variety than that to be healthy for me and her. well maybe ill try sticking her in the tub when she gets a little older. she's only a little under a month.
some veggies are likely to cause gas in newborns; particularly broccoli and cauliflower. also excess caffine can cause discomfort.
if I remember correctly, I read somewhere that brocolli may cause gas in people who eat it themselves, but there's nothing in it to come through the milk and cause gas in babies (I bet Maggie knows!). Cow milk proteins, however, definitely do come through the breastmilk, even from "non-dairy" sources that contain the slightest traces of casein or whey. And they can stay in Mama's system for up to six weeks after being eliminated from her diet.
I flip my baby onto her tummy across my lap and bounce my knees gently. Kinda bounces the gas right out of her. I also tried the gripe water, but I found that by the time I had the whole recommended dose in her, the baby would just spit it all back up (she's a champion spitter). The dimethecone drops were hit or miss, but seemed to give a little bit of relief when baby was really uncomfortable. Kellymom.com has answers to any breastfeeding question you can think of. Check it out.
I just know that my son was gassy, and when my (now ex) wife quit eating broccoli and caulilower (and onions) on the advice of our midwife the gas problem went away... she never drank milk much but always ate yougurt and cheese... w/out baby gas issues after. also some people find that eating legumes makes their babies gassy. everyone is different that way. also some folks find that even if they can not drink cow milk they can drink goats milk. Kinda a different flavor but i like it. D
It is very rare for veggies, even the cruciferous veggies to "give" a baby gas. The reason people who get them directly get gas is that a sugar called a "polysaccaride" is present in these veggies, as well as sulfur. The polysaccaride is hard for YOUR intestine to break down, so when sugar sits around in your gut, bacteria grow on it, and you get gas, sulfurated air. BUT........gases like this (air in this case) cannot get INTO your blood stream. It would kill you. It just doesn't happen. And, the types or amounts of sugar you eat have NO effect on your breastmilk. You can't increase the amounts of polysaccaride in your milk by eating polysaccarides, it is impossible. Soooo, these veggies will most likely not give your baby gas. What usually happens is that by the time the mama "figures out" what is "causing" the gas, the baby is already develioping a more mature digestive system, by that time almost any change in her diet will seem to "cure" the gas, when a lot of the time, it was just maturity of the baby (in other words time) which caused the change. As for dairy YES! It is nasty stuff. It is NOT the lactose which causes the problem, as human milk has TONS of lactose in it and the amount of lactose YOU eat has NO effect on the amount of lactose in your milk. (Womyn who are completely dairy free have as much lactose in their milk as those who eat a lot of dairy, it cannot be trasnmitted via milk.) But the PROTEINS, either Wheys or Casiene and other IGA bovine proteins CAN get into your blood and some babies will react to this. Cheese and yogurt are actually MORE allergenic, to some people than liquid milk, because they may contain more Bovine proteins. The thing is, you have to eliminate ALL dairy for a minimum of four weeks to see a difference. Even small amounts of dairy can keep your Bovine proteins in your blood and aggravate the problem. Eat the veggies, use the Simethicone (it is completely INERT, it does not even get into the blood, you get more silicone using a silicone bottle nipple or a silicone pacifier than you do taking simethicone drops) and lose the dairy. (Yes, this includes yogurt, it has MORE proteins in it than almost any dairy prodcuct, and this is what causes the problem. It is NOT a magical food. It is just the fermented lactational fluid from a Bovine animal, nothing special there.) I hope your baby feels better. In fact, if you take daily out of your diet, you will probably feel better, after a few months, too.
