Daughter throwing up everything! Different donors=problems for baby???

I have a 2 week old and she has been throwing up (not just a little spit up, but a LOT, every feeding, all throughout the day) all the donated BM I've been giving her. She spits up even 2 hours after I feed her, which you can tell it's been partially digested, sometimes coming out looking like cottage cheese. I have several different donors-has anyone experienced the problem of their little one not tolerating or adapting to eating BM from different donors? It's something I never really thought of until now, but I suppose this could be a real problem. I mean, changing BM all the time must be hard on their tummies, right? Every woman is different...different diets, lifestyles, everything. I'm really concerned about this and I've spent over $1,000 on shipping/supplies/bags/etc. to have a stash ready for her when she was born.

If anyone has any experience or opinions please let me know. I don't know what to do at this point.

I have had the same exact problem!!! I too thought it was the bm so I tried formula even the hypoallergenic and it got way worse. It is gerd. Reflux. I had to put my little guy on meds thickened liquids and keep him upright even when sleeping.
Sarah

My son had GERD and he was on meds 3x/day for 18 months! It was awful-he needed cereal in all his bottles too. It made him REALLY chunky though and I am scared to do the same thing with her. He thinned out after it stopped but I just worry about her having the same problems

I really don't think that is on your control. If you don't treat it it can get much worse. Take it from me I didn't realize what it was for a long time and it became really painful for me little guy

Were you able to use donor BM after thickening the bottles with cereal? I have a really good stash but have several different donors. I would hate to not be able to use it. I already have her elevated for sleep. Which med did the ped start your son on?

It could also be a sensitivity to something in the milk, the most likely culprit being dairy (other biggies are eggs, wheat and soy). Here is some more info about food sensitivities in the breastfed baby http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/food-sensitivity.html
My son has allergies to dairy, soy and peanuts so I have to avoid eating these things and have to find donor milk from mamas who avoid at least dairy and peanuts. I recently fed him some milk that had some dairy in it and he was projectile vomiting at night as a result. I don't think that switching from one donor's milk to another's would upset baby's tummy, but that's just my opinion. I really think this is either refulx or food sensitivity(which is sometimes caused by food sensitivity). Here is info on refulx http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/reflux.html
I would caution you against thickening the milk with cereal, that is really just treating a symptom rather than getting to the root of the problems and a baby this young does not have a mature enough digestive system to handle the cereal properly. There is more info on thickening under the reflux link I posted. Sorry this is so jumbled, I hope something in here helps and that you get things figured out soon.

Honestly your daughter and you sound exactly like us. We also thought it had be an allergy. He would throw up even 2-3 hourscafter eating he had some trouble it seemed switching milks etc. It definitely could be an allergy but we did the meds with breastmilk with no help then wedonated all of our milk and started organic lactose free formula. Then organic soy then allomentum then nitragimen. Those are the ones where if your child has a protien allergy it should help no relief in sight then we switch from Zantac to prevacid and the crying stopped from the pain but the throwing up continued. The we went did formula with rice cereal and meds no help. Then we got donors again and started breastmilk with rice cereal and prevacid. We have a new child no throwing up for over a week!! I hope this helps it is no fun trying to figure out!!

Anyone else want to weigh in on having multiple donors?

We have had NUMEROUS donors. During my babies first two weeks she had milk from 5-6 donors. At that time I would finish one and move to the next. She continues to be on several but I have started mixing from a couple donors at a time. All in all...she is fine and NEVER spits up.

My biological son was a severe spitter...projectile, throwing up pretty much all he ate, etc. He did have surgery at two weeks for an issue that they said would fix the problem. Guess what...it didn't. Brought him home and he started all over again. He ended up having issues with dairy and some reflux. I took it out of my diet and he did a little better but was a spitter forever!

With that being said...I really don't think the different donors have much to do with it. She probably has some major food sensitivities and/or reflux. I know non of us like formula but if you put her on Nutramigin for two weeks and she did better then she probably has food issues, if not then really bad reflux.

Hope that helps. PM if you want more info.
Hugs,
Tanna

I tried zantac twice daily - it wasn't enough- so he is on prevacid twice daily and thickened BM- it works great- he is so happy!!! less dairy definitely helps too !!

We just custody of a baby who was born addictde to drugs, because of that she has real bad digestive issues and has reflux. She throws up everything. We have her on this special formula Enfamil a/r which is thicker then normal formal and she takes Zantac 3xs a day

Being one of the donors, I'll weigh in on the spitting up that I had with my baby. He spit up constantly but never seemed pained by it so the doctor wasn't worried it was reflex. He did have me switch to a dairy free and anything else that might cause allergy type of plain diet to see if that made a difference. Some of the milk I sent you should be from that period but I'd have to look up the exact dates. With my son, it made no difference so he opened up my diet again. Said as long as it doesn't seem to cause him distress to not worry. He still dribble spits at most feedings but the projectile spit settled down after a couple of months, about when his colic went away.

Thanks so much for all your replies-I didn't think of the idea of switching to Nutramigen and if it fixes, it's food allergies, if it doesn't, it's reflux. That's a pretty good idea. I would hate for that to be the issue and have to 1. feed formula and 2. have to give all my donor BM away

Thanks Pam, I will let you know if I need those dates for her. I appreciate it

I'm not using donor milk, but am supplying it. I have a 2 month old (my 3rd child) and she started spitting up at about a week old. There are a wide variety of definitions of reflux out there, but in my case the spitting up wasn't causing any other problems and she was gaining weight well, so it was really just a laundry problem.

A few weeks after the spitting up started I noticed a strange breathing kind of sound when she was laying down after a feeding. It turns out that her esophogus or some part related to it is just slow to mature which causes both of those things. She's slowly been spitting up less. If that's the case with your daughter, then expect it to get better on its own. I think the key thing to look at is does it cause her pain to spit up? Also, it seemed like my daughter was spitting up everything I was feeding her, but with her weight gain going so well, that obviously wasn't the case. A little looks like a lot.

Also, it helped to keep her upright as much as possible and only lightly and frequesntly burp her. She sleeps best on my chest with me semi-reclined in bed.

I see the train of this post is all over the place- I'm blaming it on mommy brain. I hope you get a good solution. I just wanted to respond to say that it sounds just like my daughter, and with her it's not allergies or reflux or multiple sources of milk. Just annoying spit-up that she's outgrowing.

I am a donor and my daughter is also quite a spitter. She is my third child, and neither of my boys did this. Same breastmilk, just a different child. She never seemed to be in pain and she gained weight well, so we just do A LOT of laundry. The older she's gotten the less she spits up, she's 8 months old now and still spits a little at every feeding but is much improved. I would discuss your situation with your pediatrician and trust your own instincts as mom, but it may not be as bad as you think. Best of luck determining what will work in your situation!

I haven't donated yet (just joined today) but what I ran into with my daughter is that she spit up quite a bit early on, we kept her upright after feedings and also tried not to jostle her around much after eating. I did end up restricting dairy (not eliminating) and that helped a bit. Most of our projectile vomiting issues came from eating too much too quickly, or if she had a large airbubble under the food from fussing a lot before feeding.

She is 4 months old now and some days we go through a few outfits and some days she's ok in just one. I've found if I eat a lot of garlic, the next day we pay for it in spitup.

I'm sorry I dont' have anything to really *help* the situation, but just wanted to let you know that I doubt it's an issue of milk from multiple doners since my baby has had only my milk from day 1 and still had spitup issues.

I've been getting donated milk for my 11 month old DS and he starting vomiting significantly around 5-6 months. We were worried and tried all kinds of changes. In the process I found out from my holistic MD that a donating mother taking prilosec or anything for her own GERD could cause vomiting in babies and actually many prescription med's can as well. However none of our donors take any so that wasn't the cause either. I also read somewhere that technically its still 'spitting up' if there isn't any stomach fluids like bile in the mix no matter how much volume there is (not sure I did read that on the web and it IS the internet!). Make sure the babe doesn't have some kind of underlying infection like a UTI as that could cause vomiting. Lastly what ended up working for us (btw he still vomited when we tried goats milk or formula and actually even worse plus constipation so the bm is what we kept him on) was a VERY talented pediatric trained chiropractor plus using probiotics mixed in his bottles and eliminating gluten from his solid foods. Its been almost a month since a full on out vomit (and can I say whew this mama was so worried all the time about it its a relief to have it stop!!!) he literally stopped vomiting since his first chiro adjustment he has only had 2 and its still gone. A few spit ups here and there but that is due to overeating or jostling after eating. He even had some animal crackers last night WITH gluten and did ok... no vomiting! However I'm still keeping the gluten out and the dairy as both are really poorly tolerated by a baby's immature immune system. Lastly I would at all costs avoid giving them milk that isn't warm or body temperature... cold milk will instantly cause vomiting (even now for us too) cold liquids are very hard on their tummies and they won't digest them well (I'm an acupuncturist and that is advice I give my patients every day... even for adults).


Good luck and this too shall pass mama

Erika and Kingston