Help other moms

[Anonymous]

I’m stubborn! I think the word needs to get out!

[Anonymous]

Anne,

So, that’s why you see the same exact story in all the magazines and on all the news shows so often! I never heard of the theory but it sure makes sense. You see it with medical stories all the time.

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure if this is what you were looking for when you wanted a story, but here’s my story that I posted to the Oprah Show!

My baby girl Quinn was born full term and healthy. I had noticed that she puked a whole lot and that she was uncomfortable for most of the day. Not only this, but she appeared to have some difficulty in breathing. I brought this up to her pediatrician, and he wrote it off as normal infant behavior. Well, she stopped breathing one day and turned blue. She was rushed to the ER and hospitalized for pneumonia. After a week there, she suffered cardiac complications and was transfered out to another hospital where she spent another week in intensive care trying to find out what was wrong with her heart. She would turn blue a few times and her heart raced extremely fast. The end result was that she had an ASD that would close up on its own when she was 10 months old and sleep apnea in part due to her reflux. The reflux that the pediatrician wrote off as normal infant behavior. My daughter almost lost her life. She was sent home on a machine to alert us if she were to stop breathing and some medication for her reflux. They thought that she would grow out of her reflux and that we wouldn’t have any trouble from then on. But that wasn’t the case. Quinn’s apnea monitor would go off from her reflux flare ups because she would stop breathing due to the thick mucous that would come up. She was in severe pain from this and when I would bring it up to the doctor, they would tell me that it’s just reflux and she will outgrow it. Finally, after I switched her pediatrician twice due to the lack of concern for what we were dealing with, the new doctor witnessed one of her reflux episodes and it became very obvious that her mild case of reflux was not mild at all. She was then placed on a hypoallergenic formula and Prevacid which seemed to help a whole lot. She was in severe pain from the reflux for about five months before the new medication and formula switch. They said that she would outgrow it by one year old. We still are dealing with the reflux and she is 13 months. Not only that, but she is very susceptible to stomach viruses and she has an intolerance to many foods. She is also in occupational therapy due to absent reflexes we believe were probably caused from her reflux. I am very thankful for the help of infantreflux.org. Without the support of other parents going through this, I would have lost my sanity a long time ago. Reflux is not just something that every baby goes through. For many, the pain is unbearable and it can become life threatening. I think we need to reach out and help other parents in this predicament and let them know what we know as parents. Many doctors don’t prescribe the right medications or the right doses for them. The result is a frustrated parent and a screaming baby. There’s not enough doctors willing to take the time and listen to parents when they talk about their child’s reflux. Many don’t think it is serious enough and blow the parents off. During the amount of time it takes for the doctor to finally realize that there really is a problem, the child either has an inflamed esophagus, an oral aversion due to the pain from eating, underweight, and undernourished. If it were treated when the parent came to the doctor in the first place, the reflux could have been taken care of and long term problems such as these could have been prevented. -Sarah

[Anonymous]

That’s perfect Sarah! I wish mine was as well written as yours.

[Anonymous]

Thank you! Hopefully Oprah will write back and have a topic about this… but I don’t mind sending it out to Montel either. I LOVE Montel and watch his show all the time!!!

-Sarah

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