Baby Has Severe Gas in Her Intestines

I agree that it could be something you're eating. My son always got gas after I ate chocolate... but it was never this extreme. I wish you the best!

My youngest was also very gassy/colicky. Mylicon DID NOT help at all but little tummies gas drops and gripe water helped Tremendously. I second the bicycle movement. I have a friend w/triplets and all the 3 of her babies had the same problems and the bicycle movements and gripe water REALLY helps for her.

Good Luck and I hope this helps.
M.

Hi C.,
Sorry to hear another mother and baby going throught this. Our son was born 3 weeks early. Ours story didn't involve the hospital but still really bad stinky gas...then he stopped pooping all together around 8 weeks. The gas pills didn't work. After several test, they found it was an allergy to the milk protein. I was breastfeeding but drinking milk, eating cheese, yogurt.etc. I cut all that out including other known allergy triggers like eggs and peanuts. Everything started 'flowing' with in a week.So do change your diet and see if that helps and if not, keep going back to the dr untill they find out what it is. Don't let them make you feel like it's normal b/c it's not. Trust your feelings. By the way,if diary is the culprit for future reference once we finshed BF at 1 year old we found that he can only tolerate Goats milk. He can't even do Soy b/c it caused the same problem. He is two now and is fine, but I can tell if the daycare or someone (ie his older brother) has given him diary b/c his bowls change and the gas returns...strange. D.

My daughter had a lot of gas too (not this much granted) but she did have a lot. I know one thing that helped tremendously is that When I made her bottle I put a few drops of gas drops in her bottle. It worked better then just giving them to her because what it did was remove that 2 inch thick layer of bubbles from the top of it that gave her a lot of gas. Mylicon I found didnt work very well even in the bottle. The best I found was IGA's store brand but I can unfortunatly not find anymore IGA's anywhere. My friend has been exp though and said that little tummies gas drops have been doing the job in her bottles.
If you are breastfeeding you might try going to a completely bland diet for awhile and avoid veggies like cabbage and broccoli and other foods like that that cause gas as it might be something that you are eating and passing along to her.
Best of luck with your little one. This too shall pass. . .no pun intented. . .eventually. :)

are you making sure that you are not eating any gassy foods? like no carbonated drinks, no broccoli, onions, bell peppers. the only thing i can think is to research to make sure you are not eating anything that might be a gas causing food. sometimes you don't get gas from it so you may not realize that it is causing her to have gas. hope this helps & good luck.

S.

a lot of lower leg movement (bicycle legs) should help get things moving down there and a warm bath with a soft belly massage and a warm wash cloth and again with the massaging. Try to cut dairy out of your diary COMPLETELY for about two weeks. Many bf babies have issues with dairy and it causes gas ... you can slowly begin to introduce dairy again as they get older to see the response.

My son had this same problem but that was 12 yrs ago. After going to several doctors. I found one who finally gave me a prescription gas medicine. You might ask a doctor if there is anything prescription anymore.

It's common for bowel movements in breastfed infants to become less frequent after they are a month old or so. It doesn't mean that she's constipated. Also, it's common for BMs to be rather forceful, and even cause a lot of grunting, etc. to pass stool. A baby's digestive system is immature and it takes a couple months to work out the kinks. Things should be less dramatic in a few weeks. If she is still producing loose, mustard-like stool, no matter how frequent (or infrequent) she's not constipated. If she's producing hard or balled up stool, then she might be constipated.

As far as gas -- if she is exclusively breastfed, her problem may be something in your diet. Dairy is a very common cause of intestinal problems and gas. I can't believe the doctors wouldn't have suggested that you make dietary changes! You might try cutting all dairy from your diet for a week and see if she gets better. It takes a full 2 weeks for any dairy in your system to be completely out, but if dairy is her problem, you should notice changes in the baby sooner than that. She should steadily improve once you've been dairy-free for a while. You'll need to read labels of foods that you eat because butter, cheese, whey, and non-fat dry milk are in a lot of things. Because we cut dairy from my daughter's diet when she was small, I can tell you that Iron kids bread is milk-free (I've read every bread label in the grocery store), as are most of the organic brands, and Benecol can replace butter. Other things to cut that might cause gassiness in a breastfed baby: gassy foods like beans, broccoli, cabbage, salads, also caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol can be bad news for a breastfed baby. Also, there are common food allergens you might want to reduce or eliminate from your diet, like eggs, peanuts and strawberries.
Good luck!

When my son was hmm 1-2 months old, he had extreme gas, colic, etc etc. Kept us up all night crying and carrying on. I do remember it was absolutely horrible. Took him to our pediatician and he gave him reflux medicine which didn't work. Then after about 3 visits to the pediatrician he said to me "As a doctor I can prescribe another type of reflux medicine, but as a parent of a 1 month old I would suggest you get Childrens Milanta and put 1/4 tsp in bottle of milk". I did that and it instantly cured his ailments. I did try the mylicon drops and they just didn't help. I don't know if this will help you, but it certainly did help my son.

I know you will get lots of responses but this helped me. it was a life saver. My daughter went through the same thing Cry hard all day and night and strain for a bowl movement. One of the nurses that I worked with at a hospital years ago told me to try monzanilla tea (I think thats how you spell it). I was afraid to try it at first, being my first child and all, but then one day I bought it boiled it strained it into a bottle with nothing else, and after a few minutes it worked. I could not beleive it. Saved my nerves and helped my child.

Might she be lactose intolerant?

When you're breastfeeding, foods you eat can affect the baby. I cut out chocolate, all caffeine, dairy, in addition to all of the others things mentioned and that helped a lot. Also, I did gentle massage on baby's belly. And check with your doctor, but our ped said it was okay to add a little prune juice to your pumped breastmilk to help with the bowel movement (although its pretty uncommon for a breastfed baby to be constipated). My baby girl was having at least one dirty diaper per day until she was about 5 weeks old. Then she was going about 5-6 days between dirty diapers.

C.,

My son had horrible gas as a baby, he was breastfed only as well. As he got older(he is two now) he never had normal bowel movements was fussy... Very long story short...After months of trying to figure what was wrong milk bothers his tummy...too much gluten,found in wheat,barley,and rye bother him as well. The Doctors never suggested anything in his diet. We have been in cooks childrens hospital running test and GI specialist,but I did all the research and finally figured it out. I drank a lot of milk when nursing him and am convinced I could have helped by obseving my diet.

Also they make a natural thing called gripe water. You could find it at a health food store. It has ginger root and other things as well, it helped my daughter out.

C.,

My baby had quite a bit of gas problems...just not to the exent you are going through....poor little thing, you must both be worn out. I was breastfeeding also, and reduced all of the possible culprits in my diet...I was pretty much just eating chicken and rice for a few weeks to see if it would help. I know that Dairy can cause problems for their little systems...you might want to check with someone in laleche(sp?) league to see if you can get some help with what causes gas pain...basically could be what you are eating(or maybe not). I also used Baby Bliss "Gripewater" Mylecon did not seem to help, but the gripewater did seem to give her some relief.

Best of luck to you....So sorry you are both feeling this pain I know.

try fennel tea... that worked for my son also maybe try nutramigen formula or special bottles that eliminate gas :)

Since she is strictly breastfed, I would look at what you are eating. My last little one had a huge problem every time I ate anything with tomato in it. Spaghetti, ketchup, fresh tomatoes. Also broccoli, beans and anything that causes gas in our tummies also will go through your milk to do that to her as well. I also used alot of mylicon. From what I was told, you can't really overdose on mylicon. I have heard about gripe water being a gas reliever but I have never used that myself. I believe you can get that at Babies R Us.

Have you tried giving her a gentle massage on her belly in an outward circular motion. Start in the middle and gently rub in circular motions to the outside, kind of like imagining a coil and following it. Know what I mean. It works the gas along her intestines and to the out point.

Hope I helped a little.

L.

I would also encourage cutting out all chocolate, and most vegetables, esp. brocolli, cabbage, etc. Another thing I would recommend looking into is chiropractic care. It may seem odd for such a little one, and I can assure you it is not at all similar to what you may have experienced/heard of for an adult. Sometimes in childbirth the spine can get alittle out of alignment, and everything your body does runs through your spinal chord. If there is even a slight misalignment somewhere, it could be messing up the "nerve messages" being sent. I promise it is worth a shot, and will not cause any harm or concern to your daughter. I am sure you are desperate to try anything. I would also ask at some of the natural food stores to see if they carry anything that could help. Best of luck to you, I hope that this will go away very soon!!

Gripe water worked well with my daughter. You can get it at colichelp.com and Whole Foods, possibly other health food stores. I had several friends recommend it as well as my pedi's nurse. It's worth a try. Good luck!

What everyone has recommended is exactly right (my son had severe gas the first 6 months of life). I had to cut out chocolate, milk and other gassy type foods). He did have a slight milk allergy and we ended up putting him on soy & goats milk later on. He seems to tolerate dairy now okay but he's 4.

If she takes a pacifier, maybe try cutting down. I noticed the more my son sucked on it the more gas he had. Of course that's easier said than done, esp. if they are crying (they want the comfort of sucking on something).

I used to put a heated pack across his tummy (it was cloth & filled with rice that I heated up in the microwave), and that seemed to help. I had to carry him around over my shoulder or the sitting (facing out) budda position. Anything that keeps pressure on the tummy or legs up.

It's not a lot of fun and exhausting, so I feel for you. Hopefully you'll get it figured out soon. Ask for help (so you can get some rest).

She'll never face this situation if you try babies magic tea. It has natural soothing effects from gas, colic and reflux. All natural formula and safe for newborns.