GERD (Acid Reflux) Found in Babies as Young as One Day Old

GERD (acid reflux) is something I know about – I’ve been taking Prevacid for the last few years to control this reaction. Then I read Melinda Beck’s July 22^nd Health Journal in The Wall Street Journal titled “Baby crying? Doctors Say It May Be Acid-Reflux Disease.”

Here’s the first paragraph of this article:

Oliva Manganello was 1 month old when she started screaming, usually right after she nursed. Her family tried switching to formula, then different formulas, but nothing helped. Finally a pediatric gastroenterologist diagnosed gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and put Olivia on Pepcid. “In two days, she was a completely different baby,” says her mother, Trina Chiara of Avon, Conn.

When my mother read this article, her response was to wonder which of her grandchildren who cried all the time for the first few months might have had GERD.

My husband accuses me of practicing medicine without a license. But I believe it’s important, as a do-gooder Scrooge, to know about common but often undiagnosed medical conditions in order to help others.

For example, my older daughter called me from college when she worked part-time as an aide in a elementary school classroom to ask for information on allergies and asthma. My daughter could tell that a child in the class was suffering and that the mother was clueless – she needed resources to learn about her child’s medical issues. (If you need allergy and asthma resources, check out www.aanma.org.)

And that’s why I’m blogging about this topic today. (I actually woke up in the middle of the night and thought: “I haven’t shared that info yet.”)

Apparently there’s a disagreement as to whether babies are being overdiagnosed or underdiagnosed with GERD. Regardless of this, if you suspect GERD in a baby you know who cries every day for hours and hours, gently suggest to the parent that this condition be evaluated by a doctor trained to recognize it in infants and young children.

For more information, go to www.reflux.org, the website of the Pediatric/Adolescent Gastroesophageal Reflux Association (PAGER).

If a medical solution is found for a baby’s incessant crying, the baby as well as the parents and entire family will probably be forever grateful to you for their regained calm and sleep.

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GERD, gastroesophageal reflux disease, acid reflux, www.reflux.org, www.aanma.org, Wall Street Journal, Melinda Beck