Reasons for newborns spitting up while sleeping

Anyone who has experienced feeding a baby knows that babies spit up milk easily after feeding. Sometimes the baby accidentally spit up a large pool of milk on the pillow or the person holding him. Sometimes the milk even begins to ferment and becomes sour and smelly. But if you observe the baby carefully, it seems that he does not have any symptoms. In fact, spitting up is a common symptom in babies, especially in breastfed babies. The reasons for spitting up are many and complicated. When a baby spits up, the first thing to do is to find out the earliest time when the baby spit up, the relationship between the time of each spitting up and eating, the amount of vomiting, whether it is overflowing or spraying outward, whether it is continuous or intermittent, and whether it is accompanied by other symptoms, such as fever, abdominal disease, headache, etc.

Reasons for newborns spitting up while sleeping:

(1) Nasal obstruction caused by rhinitis can lead to feeding difficulties and spitting up. This can be relieved by instilling nasal drops before each feeding.

(2) Spitting up is more common in well-developed infants. If the baby is fed too much milk or if the baby inhales air during feeding, the baby may spit out the uncoagulated milk shortly after feeding, which is called regurgitation.

(3) A small number of infants suffer from unexplained "habitual vomiting". Before diagnosing "habitual vomiting", improper feeding and some organic abnormalities must be ruled out. Using a small amount of sedative before each feeding can help.

(4) Vomiting caused by some organic causes, such as projectile and forceful vomiting, which is seen in pyloric stenosis and high intracranial pressure; vomitus containing bile, which is seen in intestinal obstruction and vomiting caused by other intestinal and extraintestinal infections; when the vomitus contains excessive amounts of fluid or spoiled blood, hiatal hernia should be suspected, which can be confirmed by barium swallowing.

What should I do if my newborn spits up while sleeping?

(1) For older children who vomit repeatedly, do not feed them irritating foods containing onions, leeks, garlic, etc. Also avoid foods that are greasy, fishy, ​​or have special odors. You can give him some liquid or semi-liquid food, such as egg soup, chicken soup, red date soup or porridge. When a sick child is vomiting, do not feed him or her milk, give him or her medicine, or move him or her at will. Parents should closely observe any changes in the condition and send him or her to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment in a timely manner.

(2) When vomiting occurs, parents should immediately let the child sleep on his side or turn his head to one side so that the vomit flows out of one side of the mouth to prevent the vomit from choking the trachea and causing aspiration pneumonia. Wipe up the vomit of the child in time to prevent it from flowing into the ears and causing otitis media. After an older child spits up, you can rinse his mouth with cold boiled water. For younger sick children, they should drink more sips of water to achieve the purpose of cleaning the mouth. Judging whether it is normal for an infant to spit up milk, generally the baby's mental state is still good after spitting up milk, he still wants to eat after spitting up milk, sleeps well, and spit up one or two times occasionally, but not frequently. This is generally not a problem; illness causes frequent spitting up milk and reduced urine output, which affects the child's weight gain (causing weight not to gain or even decrease). Spitting up milk is accompanied by crying and is difficult to comfort. Not only milk but also bile or feces is spit out, and sometimes it is accompanied by fever.

The above are the reasons and solutions for newborns spitting up while sleeping. It is a very normal phenomenon for newborns to spit up while sleeping, so parents do not need to worry too much about whether their children have any disease. If the situation is serious, we should pay attention to the feeding method.