Elodie isn't THAT bad. I tend to remember Elizabeth's babyhood as being 10 times worse (memories of jamming ear plugs into my head to get through marathon screaming sessions come to mind) so Elodie's crying fits seem normal to me. Babies cry, right? The first 3 months are rough no matter what.
So I was absolutely shocked when my appointment went from normal well-visit to Let's List Everything Wrong With Your Baby.
1. Heart murmur and a referral to a pediatric cardiologist (WHAT?!?)
2. Milk allergy and a switch to soy formula...if that doesn't work, move on to Very Expensive Formula/Zantac combo (And go back to work to pay for it.)
3. Contact Dermatitis and orders that no one should wear perfumes or scented soaps around her.
4. Weak back muscles...stupid mom, why aren't you giving her 20 minutes of tummy time?
I stood there in a weird mommy daze, taking all of this bad news in stride like, "Oh, a heart murmur! Mmm-hmm. What else? Allergies! Ha! Who knew? What else?". Now, three hours later, it's finally hitting me that I have to take my baby into Pittsburgh because there's something wrong with her heart and she needs to see a specialist!
This is just mind blowing. She's not that bad of a baby! How can she have all these health issues?!?
And my heart is breaking to think that all the moaning, groaning, and grunting in her sleep might be from her itchy skin because Mommy squirts on Bath and Body Works.
And why is she--the breastfed one--allergic and sensitive? Elizabeth, Queen of Formula, has never had anything worse that a cold in her 4 1/2 years!
20 comments:
Just curious, how did he come to the conclusion of a milk allergy in a 1 month old? The skin thing is visible, the heart he can hear, the weak back muscles he can figure out, where did the milk allergy come from?
Oh Sweetie~ I'm sure the Doctor is just being very overly-cautious! Many babies have heart murmurs that they usually grow out of, I'm glad the Doc is having it looked at more closely. You'll feel so much better when someone else tells you that everything is fine. My husbands Oncologist scares me to death sometimes when he starts listing things that are wrong, but once I talk to another person about it (usually a nurse), I feel so much more relaxed. Sometimes, I think these Doctors don't LISTEN to what they're telling their patients, if it makes sense to them, they assume it makes perfect sense to us too. Just try to relax until the Pediatric Cardiologist has a chance to examine sweet Elodie.
I seem to remember having to change formulas many times because of stomach upset or colic. Maybe that will be an easy fix. I happen to love being bossy and would have no problem telling people they couldn't be around my baby if they're wearing perfumes or scented lotions....I have a feeling you won't either. ;~)
Elodie is a beautiful little girl, she'll start to feel better and less itchy and dazzle you with a toothless grin. My prayer will be that she does it this weekend, so you'll know everything will be OK! Take good care of yourself and both of the girls....you're going to be just fine~
♥,Lilly
Amanda: Her fussiness and crying around the clock, spit-up, and gas felt in her stomach. I'm surprised by the switch to soy.
Jaci,
Olivia had a milk/soy protein intolerance. It caused her to have painful reflux and it gave her stomach pain and disgusting stools.
I hate to disagree with a doctor, but hey, I'm a Google MD. :) It is impossible to truly diagnose an infant with a milk allergy. I forget the age at which a true milk allergy can be determined, but it is OLDER. (School-aged, perhaps?)
Many babies who are intolerant of milk are also intolerant of soy. This is where I disagree with your doctor. I would not switch Elodie to soy, at all. She is likely to be just as sensitive to soy. If you want my recommendation, I'd start with Nestle Good Start in the orange can, or Enfamil Gentlease. We used the Target version of Gentlease and it was way cheaper. You need to give the new formula a week to two to do its magic - once their little intestines are inflamed from the intolerance, it takes a while to heal up.
After a week on different formula, Olivia was a different baby and I was a different mom - we were both HAPPY instead of miserable. We were on Nutramigen AA Lipil (EXPENSIVE - $60/can) for a few months and it was worth every single penny.
If you do have to do Zantac, PLEASE email me or send me a FB message so that I can tell you about our experiences with reflux and reflux medications and help you talk to your doctor. Pediatricians, in general, blow a big fattie in regards to reflux meds and will tell you the Zantac is the end all be all of reflux meds when it is totally not.
Olivia never had actual contact dermatitis, but she still gets cheek rashes if someone wears perfume and holds her, or if we use Johnson's baby wash. We wear no scents and we use Aveeno wash with no issues.
Good luck, Jaci! I'm sure she'll be fine, and I do think it's great that the ped is being cautious on the heart murmur.
My new baby was also diagnosed with a heart murmer by her pediatrician. He told us it was a fairly common condition in many children. It is called a "functional heart murmer" and it is not anything to worry about, kids generally grow out of it.
My "new" baby is now 40+ years old and has been healthy all her life. No problem with her heart ever! I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but the murmer has been gone for many years.
Having it checked out is, of course, a good thing, but don't panic in the meantime. It's probably nothing.
And yes, I know that the word is "murmur", just got lost for a minute!
Pediatricians piss me off. I'm sorry you got all this LOVELY news on your perfect little girl.
Keep us posted on how it all goes and I am hoping and praying it is all just being cautious!
I get to go today to hear how I don't feed my kiddo enough! He is and has never been on the growth chart...3 years old and weighs 26 pounds.
Jen: He may have said "intolerance" and I processed that as "allergy". The appointment is all a blur of bad news and Elizabeth dancing around tweaking out about Happy Meals and Playgrounds. ;)
Jaci, we went through the same thing with K-man. He was diagnosed with milk protein intolerance but because of his constipation issues, we went straight to Nutramigen. (soy irritates constipation issues) Be mindful that Gentlease is still milk based although the proteins are partially broken down. His reflux issues went away with the change to a hypoallergenic formula. He also has eczema issues - most notably when he eats something that he's intolerant to (add that to the list), but we had to switch our laundry soap to no-dye and no-perfumes and his body wash is California Baby (found at Target).
While K didn't have a heart murmur, he was under suspician for hydrocephalus and he had to have an MRI under anesthesia - and he's just fine - he just has a big freaking head. My husband has had a heart murmur for the 49.5 years he's been on this earth - I use it as an excuse to tell him to get his butt on the elliptical!
Take a deep breath...this will be okay. And once Miss Elodie's tummy isn't hurting, she'll totally give you that smile you're looking for!
My ped always told me that often babies have an "immature gut" Both my kids did terrible with Similac/Enfamil but were fine on Nestle GoodStart. We tried the Similac again at 5-6 months and they had zero problems! (went back to Similac because we were on WIC and that is what they used).
Good Luck with the heart murmur, hope all is well with that!
Adding another don't sweat the heart murmur thing. Essie had when when she was born... they did an ultrasound of her heart, nothing looked bad, and by a year old is was gone. VERY normal situation. Don't let it freak you out!!!!
Good Gracious! That stinks and reminds me a little too much of my 2 month well baby with my daughter.
My daughter had colic and screamed hours on end until she was about 9-10 weeks old. It SUCKED! Nothing worked but eventually (as bad as it sounds) it became part of the norm at our house. She had some troubles with regular formula but we switched to gentlease, it made a big difference but had no effect on the screaming.
At the 2 month well baby check we were bombarded with Plagiocephaly (an abnormal flat spot on the skull) and were referred to a pediatric neurosurgeon! Talk about scary.
The other thing was Ankyloglossia (tongue-tie) and a referral to an ENT. This explained the feeding/latch issues and would have been nice to know much earlier.
She also had a major yeast infection...EVERYWHERE!!! Under her chin, her neck, and her lady bits. I left that visit wanting to cry!
Everything worked out in the end and once the colic ended she was a very calm, mild mannered baby.
I am sorry you had to go through that kind of a visit but your not alone and everything will work itself out. It's better to get Elodie's heart looked at now rather than later. I hope the formula switch does the trick with her too. My son had major reflux/intolerance and was put on soy formula and zantac. For him that did the trick as far as making him more comfortable. He still spit up a ton but at least he wasn't in agonizing pain anymore.
Hope everything works out for you and you can look back at this and have it just be a crazy memory!
Sheesh - what a visit! You've got lots of advice and I know absolutely nothing about formula, so I'll just say I hope your wee one feels better soon!
Ian has a heart murmur. He has a small hole that will most likely need surgery at some point (I forget the technical term). He went at 6 months for an echo and then again at 18 months...and he'll go back once a year until he's 6-7 and they go in to close it. It's scary but it's seriously not a big deal. If she has something similar, the cardiologist told me it has a 0% chance of being fatal. Most people don't even know they have it until they're adults and he's even done surgery on major league baseball players, and they never had an issue.
Like others said, a lot of babies have murmurs that are just that...and they grow out of them without surgery at all. Either way, she'll be fine.
Sorry about all the other issues, I have no experience with them. Hopefully she'll be feeling better soon!
Jaci, I did not have time to read the other comments so i'm sorry if this is repetitive. First, Pittsburgh is great, P's cardiologist is at WVU, but neuro is at UPMC Children's. How far are you from pittsburgh? btw, lol for my curiosity. Anyways, chances are the murmur is benign, the dr. is just covering bases which is GOOD. Secondly, I personally would not do soy with all of the current research in relationship to hormones, etc. We tried it, and it seemed to do wonders after I quit breastfeeding, then the shit hit the fan. We ended up going with Enfamil AR (same as similar RS) because it's a sensitive base plus rice cereal to help with reflux. We tried nutramigen (similac alimentum) luckily the expensive crap made Peyton worse. HOWEVER, check with your insurance, under DME for medical and also call your prescription processor, generally prescription formula is covered and they will send it to you, if not the dr. can try to get it approved. I KNOW I was flipping on how we were going to pay for the nutramigen. It's neither milk nor soy based so it's for children with true milk allergies. I believe they can do skin testing at 4 months of age to see if baby has a true intolerance.
Oh & zantac didn't help Peyton at all, I know every child is different but the dosage has to be adjusted so much & she maxed out on the weight limit. We went through prevacid and are now on Nexium, and she's puking all the time.
If you need more detail on what the cardiologist will do definitely let me know Realisticdreams424 at hotmail dot com & I can give you the play by play of what they did. She was a little over a month when we went.
Deep breath!
Here goes... get the rotten fruit ready...
No one can say, "most babies this" or "most babies that" because really? Unless they are a pediatrician? They have experience with x number of babies, where x represents the number of children they have. And, since they are all from the same family, there probably isn't too much variation.
Mine all (except one, so that's 4) had milk sensitivity. With one, I quit breastfeeding and went to soy. She did great. With the 3rd, I never breastfed and did milk-based formula but used zantac. With #4 I eliminated all dairy from my diet for the entire time I breastfed (9 months) and now with #5 we're still off dairy (she's 6 months). My #1 had/has eczema, which I've heard is closely linked to milk allergies, as are ear infections.
All I can say is, really, Elodie is in good hands. You are taking good care of her. You are watching and taking precautions. All of these things are really inconvenient for everyone involved, and certainly is testing your sanity, but she will grow and thrive and become a beautiful healthy young girl. You'll find something that works and you'll go with that. It's so easy to get overwhelmed with the advice and the rules and the milestones. Don't pay attention to that!!! Just watch Elodie and use your intuition. Listen to advice of women you *trust* (which may or may not include us internet freaks - myself included.)
PS I totally recommend a book by dr. Bryan Vartebedian, called "Colic Solved". You should read it - I guarantee you will get some peace of mind.
Oh, and, one more thing. I didn't mean to minimize the heart murmur thing. I pray it turns out to be nothing, but really there's nothing you can do to help her and there's nothing you did to cause it, so just find a doctor you can trust and pray.
Don't go with soy formula. Enfamil worked for both of my kids with reflux. Also, Zantac is the first RX they for reflux. My son was fine with that, but my daughter wasn't. She did well with Prevacid. Ask your pediatrician about Maalox. I was able to give my kids a teaspoon a couple times a day. You could try that to see if it helps Elodie or not.
The heart murmur thing, don't stress. Most kids grow out of it and it's not too big of a deal.
Good luck! I will be praying for you!
i'll second what everyone else is saying... my daughter had the heart murmur at birth, it went away, then came back. 2 trips to the pedi. cardiologist and she is just fine. i hate to say it but you know how dr.s can be... i get better safe than sorry but sometimes i think it's all about the $$.
as for the food/milk allergies have those too. our are peanuts and eggs, but you learn to live with it.
sorry your having to deal with all this crap at once. it really sucks!
I know exactly what you mean. My son has MANY food allergies and Nutramigen is the only thing he could eat and keep down. Also he had bad skin as well but when he was on the right formula it all cleared up. Good luck.
Nutramigen Baby Formula Website
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