Chloe's Story

Sweet Chloe

When our sweet baby girl was born she weighed 10lb 1oz and for the first three weeks of her life she was a dream baby. I remember it was a Saturday morning when I first became aware of her excess vomiting and pain. Hoping it was just a tummy bug I persevered over the weekend. However by the end of the next week without much sleep, endless vomiting and pain, I visited our health center nurse who suggested she might have reflux. She was losing weight now, even though I consistently fed her night and day and so I visited my G.P. who seemed reluctant to help me and urged me to let it take its course. After receiving no information or support, home I went.

Another week passed, in the same nature of the week before, and on having her weighed again, I found she had lost weight. A pattern seemed to be emerging, feeding pain, no sleep and weight loss, and so we went to a pediatrician, who although acknowledged her reflux, was not worried about her continual weight loss, giving me the reasons of;" Good Metabolism," and "Just because she was born weighing 10lb doesn't mean she needs to keep growing at that rate." And so we continued.

I began wondering if she was hungry or in pain, or as someone suggested, maybe she wouldn't go to sleep by herself because I spent my time entertaining her with different settling techniques? My whole life became filled with endless questions, to which no one seemed to have any answers. I tried elevating her bassinette, putting her in a cot, putting her on her side/stomach to sleep. I tried everything I could think of or that was suggested to me. Unfortunately a lot of the things I have since read in the D.I.S.A.s newsletters could have helped us.

She was such a good breast feeder that I became distressed when it was time to feed because she fed beautifully and then no matter how I held her, or if I didn't move her, she'd then lose the whole feed with one burp, leaving me with the dilemma of whether to feed her again in twenty minutes when she was screaming. Even after sleeping for two hours, the first thing she'd do would be to vomit.

I had thirty-two bibs and twelve nappies, which I use as wipes and all of these where used each day. I hated people holding her, because they knew how to hold a baby, though they soon found out not one with reflux. I remember when she was due for her first immunizations, I agonized over what time to have them because she vomited before, during and after the feeds and I was worried she wouldn't be able to keep it down. My whole life revolved around her reflux.

Some days were really distressing and I was just fed up with her vomiting, I even began to hate it when she wanted to feed, wondering what was the point. One night her vomiting was so severe that she wouldn't stop. It was terrifying. My husband was away and it was eleven o'clock, when she finally stopped vomiting and then I was unable to wake her. I rang my doctor, who didn't feel it was necessary to see her, and told me to go to the hospital if I was worried.

I had to drag my poor little boy out of his bed and leave him with my sister in the middle of the night. My poor little boy didn't know what was happening. Luckily the midwives where supportive and admitted us.

Unfortunately during this time no one ever mentioned to me that there was a support group or that it was common and I wasn't alone. So in the end I didn't let anyone know what was happening, as I found if I did explain to anyone even professionals about her vomiting, their reply was "Oh right!" I know that no one ever believed me that a baby would vomit up to 100 times a day. Thankfully I have a very supportive family, without them I would never have managed, however they also had never experienced reflux. Eventually we put her on solids, which gradually as she got older, helped.

At six months she had improved greatly. There were still times that she didn't gain weight, but she was rolling everywhere and was generally happy. Her bouts of pain became less frequent, and her vomiting subsided quite a lot. She generally slept through the day then, although her night habits where still terrible, leaving me to decide whether or not to preserve, as I didn't know if she was still in pain or just being cheeky.

We have learnt though D.I.S.A. that many reflux babies can't have a variety of foods, so we adjusted her diet, and she improved enormously. Luckily I was never encouraged to put her on the bottle, so I am happily still breastfeeding.

Now that she is getting better I'm at the angry stage, where was the support for us, and why did no one know about it. My little boy is three and I feel he has suffered a lot as Chloe was at times very consuming and he had to just wait or miss out, and I was often impatient and angry with him.
I feel that I have been totally let down by the professionals and in the end I stopped seeing them, as they weren't able to help me. Chloe didn't have any tests for her reflux as I didn't know they were available to me as they were never suggested? Looking back I am extremely angry and I hope there aren't too many people like me, who have been unaware that there was help for my baby.

Chloe's reflux improved dramatically from eight months and now at eleven months she doesn't vomit at all. Now that we understand about food intolerance and have adjusted her diet, her reflux is probably non-existent. However a couple of weeks ago her eczema became infected and during a visit to our doctor, he suddenly became concerned that she was very pale. (She was always pale!) He ordered blood tests concerned that she might be bleeding internally, which left me dumbfounded!

Here I was faced with all of this again, except that it was eleven months too late! Her test came back showing that she was slightly anemic so off to the pediatrician we went, who shot down in flames the theory of her being anemic or bleeding internally. I came home numb. I couldn't believe that the cycle was happening again, and I started to once again feel distressed.

So I looked at my happy contented chubby baby (finally), and decided that we would continue on as we were. This was the one and only bit of attention that was finally given to us and 'our' reflux.
In some ways I was my own enemy as I always pretended to cope, because I needed to! But really I was on the edge and maybe if I had to give in, someone may have realized how bad it was and helped us more.

Through all of Chloe's troubles she has been the sweetest baby. Even when she was in pain she'd still manage to smile and laugh. I look at her now and I feel so guilty and sad that she endured so much pain and half the time I was never sure whether it was pain or if she was spoilt. I look at her now and think how could I have thought she was spoilt. I should have known that she was in pain

Even a year later I still cry thinking that I should have done more for her, but I guess I was so distressed about the whole thing that I just kept on going. My sweet Chloe is a happy cheeky "eating machine." Sometimes I think I feel worse now because she suffered so much and there is help for babies like her, through DISA, but I just keep going on!