BOSTON -- As most parents can tell you, babies spit up -- a lot. It runs the gamut from a laundry-creating annoyance to a serious medical condition.
Usually, kids outgrow the condition known as "reflux." But some families aren't so lucky.
At 23 pounds, Shae-Lynne is small for her age. She's almost 4.
Shae-Lynne has a very severe form of a common childhood condition, and she gets her nutrition from infant formula fed through a plastic tube into her bowel.
"In infancy, almost all babies spit. Almost all babies have reflux, and all reflux means is acid contents coming up from the stomach, where they normally belong, into the esophagus," said Dr. Esther Israel, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Israel said that almost all kids outgrow reflux by 18 months or sooner.
There are things parents can do to help:
- Adjust the baby's position. Keep her upright after feedings, and put her to sleep on her left side.
- Avoid overfeeding. Offer him small, frequent feedings. Go slowly and burp often.
- In serious cases, antacid medications may be helpful.
Unfortunately, none of those strategies worked for Shae-Lynne.
"When you go through medication after medication after medication and they don't help, you get to the point where there's no medication left," Shae-Lynne's mother, Roni Maclean, said. "Your kid is still throwing up 20 times a day. She's still screaming all night long and still refuses to eat or is still tube fed."
Roni has written the book "Life on the Reflux Roller Coaster." She and her mother hope it will help other parents and help speed up a cure for reflux disease.
"I'm more angry and wanting to make a change, and I'm going to do anything and everything I can to make people aware of it to get people to know about it to make something happen to make some changes," she said.
Roni and Shae-Lynne are taking it day by day.
"Find other mothers who are going through it. Get online. Find a support group, because you'll get more information from other mothers," Roni said.
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