What are the reasons for baby spitting up?

It is very common for infants and young children to spit up milk while feeding. It may be caused by physiological reasons, because the baby's esophageal tension is relatively low and cannot accommodate too much food. It will get better when the baby grows up. It may also be caused by pathological reasons. If the baby has a cold or a bacterial infection, it will cause spitting up. Another point is improper feeding and care. If the baby always spit up milk, the mother should pay special attention. First, determine the cause, and then treat it symptomatically to allow the baby to grow up more healthily.

1. What are the reasons for baby spitting up?

1. Physiological reasons

Your baby's stomach doesn't hang down like it does in older children and adults, but is in a horizontal position. This will reduce the stomach's capacity and allow it to store less food. In addition, because the baby's esophageal muscle tension is relatively low, the cardia is relatively loose and not tightly closed, so it is easy for food to break out of the cardia and cause vomiting.

These physiological vomiting will stop as the baby grows older as the neural regulation of gastric ptosis, intestinal motility, and endocrine secretion of gastric acid and proteolytic enzymes gradually strengthen.

2. Pathological causes

Colds, bacterial infections, constipation, pyloric stenosis, esophageal atresia, intestinal atresia, intestinal malrotation, congenital megacolon, etc. can all cause abnormal spitting up in babies.

3. Improper feeding and care

Improper feeding posture, feeding too quickly, too much milk or too short an interval between meals; turning the baby too much during feeding; adding complementary foods too early; when feeding with a bottle, the hole of the nipple is too large, causing the milk to flow out too quickly and not have time to swallow, etc. These improper feeding methods will cause the baby to spit up milk. When the baby is 6 months old, he or she will not only master the sucking skills well, but also have a more mature gastrointestinal function, and the number of spitting up will be significantly reduced. If a newborn baby often spits up milk, mothers must distinguish whether it is due to physiological reasons, pathological reasons or improper feeding, so as to decide how to solve the problem of baby spitting up milk. Parents don’t need to worry about spitting up under normal circumstances, as long as the baby’s weight gain is normal and his mental state is good.

2. How to take care of baby spitting up milk?

1. Keep your upper body elevated

If vomitus enters the trachea, it can cause suffocation. Therefore, when letting your child lie down, it is best to put a bath towel under the child's body and keep the upper body elevated. If the baby spit up while lying down, we can turn the baby's face to one side.

2. After spitting up, pay more attention to the child's condition

When the child is lying down, raise the child's head or simply hold the child upright. After spitting up, the baby may look unhappy, but it is fine as long as he recovers later. In addition, you can give your child some water as appropriate depending on the situation.

3. Rehydrate within 30 minutes after vomiting

If you give your child water right after he or she spits up, it may cause vomiting again. Therefore, it is best to try to feed your child some plain water a little bit at a time with a spoon about 30 minutes after vomiting.

4. After spitting up, the amount of milk you feed each time should be reduced to half of the usual amount.

When the baby recovers and wants to breastfeed again, we can feed him some more milk. However, the amount of milk each time should be reduced to about half of the usual amount, but the number of feedings can be increased. During the period of continuous vomiting, we can only feed the baby milk and not other foods, including complementary foods.