At that moment, when a child screams heartbroken, wriggles heartily, refuses food, dummies and favorite pastimes, many parents are lost and forget how to behave and how to help their baby. At the same time, it does not matter if this is the first or fifth child in their family - almost all mothers and fathers feel helpless. When a stomach hurts in newborns, they badly need to relieve their condition.
A long cry will not turn out good for either the child or his parents. For the baby, this is fraught with nervous disorders, headache, disruption of the vocal cords and hoarseness, and his mother will have to endure another stress. So, what should I do if a newborn’s tummy hurts? How to recognize the cause of malaise and how to help a tiny creature?
Natural physiology
To begin with, it should be said that all children without exception suffer from abdominal pain. It's just that in some babies this problem is more pronounced, in others - less. But there can be several causes of pain. The most common culprits for a newborn's well-being are:
- flatulence;
- spasm;
- intestinal inversion (intestinal obstruction).
The first two problems cause completely different factors. We will consider the main ones in more detail below. Most of these factors are not so difficult to eliminate. Treatment takes place at home after consultation with a pediatrician. But inversion of the intestines is a life-threatening condition. Symptoms may include vomiting, fever, constipation and bloating with difficulty in running out of gases or their complete absence, often - mucous diarrhea with an admixture of blood clots. In case of observing any of these symptoms, you need to urgently seek help from a medical institution to prevent a tragedy. Only timely surgical intervention will help save the baby's life!
All will pass?
If the tummy hurts the newborn due to cramping or colic, he needs proper care and preventive measures that will help if not completely remove the unpleasant sensations in the child, then at least they will minimize them.
Usually, gas problems in babies do not begin immediately after birth, but only after two to three weeks from the moment of birth.
The formation of the gastrointestinal tract in all occurs in different ways, in many respects the successful course of the process depends on the method of feeding the baby. Children who are on natural (breastfeeding) nutrition quickly receive microflora that is beneficial for their body from their mother, while the number of pathogenic microorganisms is significantly lower than those who eat a mixture from a bottle. In this regard, the abdomen often hurts in a newborn eating artificially.
As a rule, if nothing prevents the baby’s body from adapting to a new environment, then by the time they are three or four months old the child and his parents will forget about colic and stomach cramps. Problems such as dysbiosis, infections, lactase deficiency, poor motility and associated constipation can delay the formation of the gastrointestinal tract. All these factors contribute to the accumulation of gases that provoke unpleasant sensations in the intestines of the child.
Thrush and stomachache
Often, mothers notice a thick white coating in the mouth of their babies. It can cover only the tongue or move on - to the gums, cheeks, settle in the sky. The cause of this raid is a fungus of the genus Candida, which is popularly referred to as thrush. At first glance, there is nothing wrong with this, an organism with a strong immune system must cope with the disease itself, but until the moment of recovery comes, the child will feel discomfort, because the fungus provokes fermentation in the digestive tract.
From this, the baby develops increased gas, bloating and colic. So, when a baby’s tummy hurts because of thrush, what should I do? If the degree of damage is small, you can wipe the oral cavity alternately with a solution of soda (1 tsp. Soda in 1 cup of warm boiled water) and vitamin B12. The procedure is carried out after meals for several days. But sometimes such measures do not bring the desired result and the thrush does not pass completely or quickly returns. In this case, you need to show the baby to the pediatrician, and he will prescribe an antifungal drug that is acceptable for use by children.
How does constipation affect the well-being of the newborn?
Constipation is another common reason that causes a stomachache in children. A newborn child may not defecate for several days, and this is considered one of the options for the norm. But only if he does not feel discomfort. If it is difficult for the child to defecate, he cannot do it himself, and the mother has to put him a gas outlet, a glycerin suppository or an enema, which means that it is necessary to adjust the baby's nutrition.
Especially often suffer from constipation, children who are breast-fed. In the event of such a problem, you can try to change the mixture, it will not hurt to add a drink to the child’s diet (water, dill water, chamomile tea).
Incorrect chest grip
But children who are breastfed often face another problem - swallowing air while sucking. In the first weeks after the birth, lactation is only getting better, there is a lot of milk in the chest, and the baby may not be able to swallow it. Therefore, he eats uneasily, often comes off the nipple and grabs a lot of air with his mouth. If you do not raise the child in time to help burp him, this air will disturb him and provoke pain in the tummy. When the baby learns to properly grasp the areola of the chest and suck milk evenly, it will be much easier to deal with this problem.
Are anti-colic bottles effective?
Artists can also suffer from swallowing air during meals, but their mother can help them by simply changing the usual bottle to a special, anti-colic bottle. According to the manufacturers of such dishes, the nipple of such a bottle is equipped with an equalizing pressure system that prevents air from entering the silicone cap, and it is completely filled with milk or a mixture.
Is it possible to help the baby by refusing food?
Thus, we almost figured out why a newborn has a stomach ache, but missed one of the questions that interests the overwhelming majority of nursing mothers - diet. Recent studies by pediatricians from around the world prove that there is virtually no correlation between what a woman eats and the formation of gas in her child. In many western countries, moms are allowed to eat everything that they are used to. That is, they do not need to limit themselves to healthy foods - meat, fresh vegetables and fruits, dairy products, and even sweets. All that is forbidden is food that causes allergic reactions and various harmful effects that are generally undesirable for everyone to eat:
- alcohol;
- carbonated drinks with sugar;
- power engineering;
- fast food;
- fried, oily and overly spicy foods.
Of course, you can experiment with the diet. In the end, a short-term rejection of whole milk or legumes has not yet killed anyone, but, unfortunately, even excluding from the diet all foods that could theoretically provoke bloating, mothers see a newborn baby having a stomachache. What if the diet does not help, but there are no other obvious symptoms of the disease (constipation, diarrhea, etc.)?
Rescue physical education
The most affordable, harmless and proven way to help a child is physical activity. Due to its age and lack of development, the baby cannot move fully. All his activities are limited to a chaotic wave of arms and legs. When a child suffers from pain, he tries to help himself - he presses the legs to his stomach. But if the spasm is strong or the gases accumulated in the intestines form too large bubbles, it will be difficult for him to free himself from them in this way.
What then to do? How to help? The tummy hurts in the newborn usually in the evening. To sleep peacefully all night, mom should deal with the baby throughout the day. During wakefulness, you need to lay it on the tummy, do physical exercises, massage, light gymnastics, including on the ball.
Folk remedies for colic
Physical education and massage will help to accelerate peristalsis and contribute to the discharge of gases. But the spasm cannot be removed with the help of motor activity. If exercise has not yielded results, you can try another way to relieve pain in the crumbs - heat. You can attach a diaper heated with an iron or a heating pad with non-hot water to the baby’s tummy. The body-to-body pose also calms the baby down perfectly when the mother puts the child on her belly.
Medications
There are several types of medicines that can be given to children for colic. Most of them are based on simethicone, a substance that “extinguishes” air bubbles and helps to split them into smaller particles. The most popular drugs in this group:
- Espumisan
- Infacol;
- "Sub Simplex";
- Espikol, etc.
Each of these drugs has both positive and negative ratings. Sometimes mothers have to try several different medicines before they choose the one that is right for their babies.
But if the child still suffers, the tummy of the newborn hurts, what should I do? Reviews of parents recommend the use of another group of drugs - funds based on fennel seeds. These are “Plantex”, “Humana”, “Bebivita” teas and drops made from concentrated oils - “Happy Baby” or “Bebinos”.