Caring for gassy infant – How to treat gas in infant

Here’s some tips on caring for gassy infants born from my trial by fire:

At the FIRST sign of gas – crying, squirming, passing very little gas after a lot of action… use neopeptine. I’d say, when in doubt, use neopeptine too.
Comfort baby. Cuddle in fetal position. This brings legs closer to stomach and naturally helps pass gas, while making the baby feel secure.
Feed baby. Babies tend to have bowel movements (or attempts) when feeding. The feeding comforts as well as helps them move the gas along.
Put some massage oil (coconut oil should be fine) on your hands and rub the tummy gently. G-e-n-t-l-y. You are not trying to squeeze the gas out. Just soothe and encourage movement.
Move the baby a lot. The squirming that is tiring your baby out is basically the baby moving to help pass gas. You can be a huge help to baby here. Rock, swing, exercise legs in bicycling motions, hold legs up like for a diaper change….. keep changing positions. The baby will not settle till the gas passes, so a position change is only temporary relief. Don’t let the infant get all worked up when it loses its effectiveness, move to a different position.
Of course, when a position soothes baby, hold it for longer, or move to something else quickly.
The end of the baby that gas is expected to exit has to be higher. Gas rises, remember? So, if your baby is moving his head restlessly, rocking back and forth, etc, hold him vertical, pat back, encourage burp. If he is squirming the whole body, drawing up legs and kicking them out, etc. Put horizontal and raise legs, cuddle in cradle hold, lightly rub small circles on lower back, etc.

These are things to do while your baby is suffering. If you are breastfeeding your infant, it might help to look into fore-milk hind-milk imbalance or lactose overload (NOT lactose intolerance), which I have written about earlier.

Baby weight gain and bonnissan

I had written earlier about how Nisarg was having problems with gas and diarrhoea and the doctor had prescribed Bonnisan. Then I wrote about how after just two days, Nisarg had normal baby poop for the first time in his life.

Well…. half a month later, we haven’t had a single loose bowel movement yet, and Nisarg is filling up quite well, with chubbying cheeks and slight hints of plumpness that we associate with babies. I don’t think he’s ever going to be one of those round babies, but hey, he’s healthy, active and putting on weight steadily. He also put on an inch in height – he’s now 22 inches.

I don’t know what he weighs, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s put on a kilo from the last appointment to the next.

Maybe its just regular growth, but I’m of the opinion that the Bonnissan really helped. He just was cranky (for him) and slow to grow since the gas set in till before we started with it.

Neopeptine drops for infants with gas

Okay, like I said that the baby’s loose bowel motions got sorted by Bonnisan, the other helpful miracle we had with the gas was Neopeptine.

This is apparently something with digestive enzymes, and it really helps cut the amount of gas discomfort the baby goes through. Unfortunately, it took us a while to discover how to use it.

So, if you are using Neopeptine for infant gas, here are some tips, which we wish someone had given us:

You have likely been advised to give Neopeptine only for extreme colic, like we were. This makes you tend to wait for quite some time before the baby’s screaming forces you to use it. Don’t wait. Use it at the first sign of gas.
If your baby is suffering from gas, don’t give doses only when he is in pain. Give them for a day or two, as long as you aren’t giving him more than three times, though we have given him four or even five doses once on the first day, when he was in a lot of trouble.
Give the drops before feeding.
Neopeptine helps baby move the gas easier, but you can help it along. Give drops, burp, feed, burp, wait for some time, burp again.
Moving the baby’s legs will also help him pass gas, which will not hurt your situation.

Have you used Neopeptine? How did you use it? How was your experience?

Nightmare night

Last night Nisarg cried, and cried, and cried. Poor chap. He vomitted a couple of times, had loose stools, gas…. and was utterly miserable.

He wanted to be held all the time and still sobbed on and off.

Nothing worked. feeding, burping, music….

Just as I was about to rush him to the ER of the nearest hospital, he started nodding off, utterly exhausted. Poor little boy. Care….fully, I put him down, and after a few sobs, he was out. Such a tiny body, so tired from the discomfort and crying.

I was a goner too. I was tired myself, but all wired up. Sleep didn’t matter if I could just bring him some comfort…. Luckily, at 4am, this nightmare story ended from sheer exhaustion on his part. After staying awake for another half hour or so to just be sure that he was ok, I slept like a log.

He woke up in the morning with a ear destroying scream, and I was like, “Not again….”. I began telling Raka how we were taking him to the hospital immediately after feeding, and he started getting ready.

Just to be contrary I think, Nisarg drank and drank and drank like he was starving, belched like a drunk sailor, and was peacefully sleeping before his burping was done. He didn’t even stir as I put him down.

Raka and I looked at each other in disbelief. Apparently, the guy was just hungry after his difficult night.

I’ve been looking at him warily all day, but so far, so good.

Bonnisan works miracles with gassy infant!!!

Of course I did a whole load of searching on Bonnisan, and then tasted it myself before even showing baby the bottle….

I’d read all kinds of nice things about it, which kind of reassured me, and the taste is nice – similar to gripe water, so initially I didn’t know what the doctor’s big deal about the whole thing was.

I found out for myself within our first day on the medicine. Two doses in, and the gas pains were audibly lower. Baby was sleeping better, more cheerful and eating more.

We are now into our second day and WOW!!! Nisarg is back to the sweet tempered baby he was before this gas nightmare began. He hasn’t pooped all day today after every day since birth being an experience of a constantly pooping bottom. He still has gas, but its much less and he can pass it without going through agony for every fart or spraying poop along with it. His body just seems so limp and relaxed after feedings.

I’d reached the end of my rope with this gas thing, and desperately needed a miracle. Looks like I got one.

If I add my experience with this medicine, with the research I read, I don’t know why doctors don’t simply prescribe this off the bat, or at least at the first sign of trouble. Its a digestive tonic that does so many things. Just Google it. No point having to suffer through my half baked jargon.

6week doctor's appointment

We had our third doctor’s appointment today. Ever since I started surfing the net and discovered that my baby was “near-term” and “underweight” I’ve been obsessing about getting him on the charts. So much for accepting the baby how it is.

On some level, I think its good for Nisarg that I’m obsessing over his weight, because it makes me extra attentive to his needs. So maybe the mothering instinct is not completely absent when faced with charts….

Anyway, this time, his weight was 4.35kg, which is a gain of 831 grams since the last visit a month ago. Good. He is still off the charts low though. I was thrilled to know that regular charts don’t represent normal breastfed babies and are too high, but unfortunately, he is still low on the WHO charts for breastfed babies. His height is in the third percentile though.

Anyway, the other thing I was obsessing about was vaccinations. We could get them done for free in the government facilities (which I’ve heard are very good), but the darling would get 4 injections instead of the combined vaccine and Hepatitis-B which is only two with the pediatritian. Plus, they are supposed to be painful and cause swelling and fever. I’m terrified of injections myself, and no way would I let my love suffer from a single prick that could be avoided. Plus, the government vaccines won’t do HiB, which protects from pneumonia, influenza and whatnots. Thus, I talked myself out of the cheapest option.

Then the doctor had two options a cheaper one (not really) that was still painful, and a more expensive one which would be “hardly noticed”. Not an easy choice considering how the better one cost twice the other. At Rs.1300/- and 2500/- neither were exactly cheap. Hmm… so I see this baby thing is not going to be a moneysaver.

Anyway, we went, celebrated our weight gain, and got our vaccines with no pain other than that to my wallet.

Considering how Nisarg has been suffering from a loose bowel since birth, I was determined to not leave without some answers. The reading on lactose intolerance had helped, but he was still gassy and still passed motions continuously through the day, though not in as much pain as before.

This time, I talked about the neo-peptin and the gripe water. When I brought up the gripe water, the doctor said to not give it (again) and with a sigh scribbled out a prescription for something called Bonnisan.

Thus armed, we have come home. Hopefully, the direction to travel is greater comfort, joy, love and all that.

Tips for infant gas pain

We had gas pain again last night.

This time around, I was able to comfort him in an hour…. which is too long for my baby to be in pain…

What worked was:

Playing his favourite music
Cuddling to comfort him
Breastfeeding to comfort him
Patting and stroking his back while cuddling to help him burp
Raising his legs like for a diaper change to help him fart
Doing leg exercises like cycling, pressing knees to stomach, etc

Feeling troubled about giving gripe water when the doctor said not to, I gave it anyway and discovered that burping him immediately after the gripe water provided greater relief than just giving it to him. He burped at least two times, maybe five (couldn’t be sure if those were burps).

Gas trouble for my baby

We had our first horrible night.

Nisarg just cried and cried and cried for 3 hours. We felt so helpless.

He woke up screaming bloody murder. Poor baby had gas. Every little while, a pain built and he screamed and squirmed and kicked out with his tiny feet in agony, and all we could do was look on helplessly as all our comfort methods failed. If there was ever a moment parents could be fired for failing their babies, it was this one….

I tried everything I could. Rocking, singing, talking, cuddling, massaging, feeding at the breast, bottle, moving his feet to help expel the gas. Everything worked for a minute or so, and the poor tyke was back to yelling. I have never felt so helpless or under prepared. The doctor had given us some drops and they helped, but it was about an hour after he had started crying that we thought to give them….

He had cried so hard that he was still having tiny sobs after he finally drank milk and slept. The morning brought some relief, but it was back to the same screaming inconsolably a while later.

Am at my wits end. Called the doctor, and she simply said that these things happen and to comfort him how we could.

Mother in law says to give him gripe water everyday, but the doctor shot down the idea earlier. She repeated it again, and again, and again, till we got some and gave it to him. Not much of a difference though he does like the taste.

On an internet expedition to find out what I can do to help him.

Nisarga

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