Swallowing Air

[deanna.m.gourley]

I'm just wondering if any of you have noticed that your little heart kiddos swallow a lot of air and it ends up causing them extreme discomfort at night?

Gracie's GI doctor recently told me that heart kiddos are notorious for swallowing large amounts of air and that there's not much that we can do for it, but hope that she out grows it.

Lately Gracie has been swallowing so much that about 3-4 hours after she goes to bed, she wakes up every 20-30 minutes in what seems to be terrible pain---I try venting and burping her g-tube (she doesn't pass gas that well), and this continues for at least 4 hours before she magically is able to sleep.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has this problem and possible things that have worked for you.

Thanks,

Deanna

[Ellinger Family]

Nathan is notorious for swallowing air! The only trick we have found that works is to give him his formula slower (he does 240 ml/hr). He is getting 8 ounces of formula at one time so it takes an hour to get it down him. We thought we could just feed him with the syringe, but that seems to make it worse.

Getting air out of Nathan's g-tube also seems to be a positional thing. Generally if I lay him on his back and have him bring his knees to his belly it helps to force the excess air out a bit better.

I think the pressures that Nathan feels in his belly are part of the eating problem we are having. He's hit the 2 year old stage of him being the boss. He just doesn't even like to be tube fed right now and it is somewhat turning into a fight to get him hooked up sometimes to eat.

I've also found that letting Nathan carry his "mini me" backpack with the pump in it has helped with the air problems since he is up and moving and it gets his system to wake up a bit better and tolerate the feedings better.

Hope that helps some! Good luck

[Ellinger Family]

Oh yeah - at night we are still doing 30ccs per hour. I try to vent Nathan really well before bedtime, but am still at a loss as what to do with the air he swallows at night. Nathan sleeps ok during the night, but with the excess air in the morning it makes it so he doesn't tolerate the 9:00 a.m. feeding very well.