Newborn has a stomach ache, how to help. Signs of tummy problems in a baby. How to spot a problem in a child's behavior

Abdominal pain in babies is due to the fact that their digestive system is not yet formed. When a newborn's tummy hurts, the main causes include colic, gas accumulation, and intestinal dysbiosis. But since the baby will not talk about what is happening, and can only cry, you need to find out whether something really hurts him and whether it is his tummy that is really bothering him.

Babies indicate that their stomach hurts by curling and straightening their legs, while bending and crying, or simply acting restless/irritable, and may refuse to eat. Sometimes the child is able to start eating, but at this time his anxiety will increase. When the pain is too strong, the baby turns pale. If there is a problem with the digestive organs, the pain is short-lived and disappears after defecation, or after taking antispasmodic or enzyme medications.

Common causes of abdominal pain in babies

Often, when a baby’s tummy hurts, it can be assumed. This phenomenon is indeed not uncommon in children in the first six months and is associated with the development of the digestive system and unfamiliarity with new foods. Colic does not require special treatment and goes away on its own. There are only some recommendations.

If it is because of colic that an infant’s stomach hurts, eliminate “heavy” fatty, spicy, fried foods, as well as sweets and coffee from your diet. Avoid drinking carbonated water, fast food and processed foods. Eat less potatoes, cabbage, pasta, green apples and grapes.

But in the first year of life other problems appear.

Determine how it hurts and for what reason

When a newborn's stomach hurts, you can try to determine the cause yourself and solve the problem. Use the symptom chart.

If a newborn has a tummy ache, monitor the baby's condition. If he is not vomiting, has a fever, or has other unusual threatening symptoms, he may just need to have a bowel movement. Your doctor will advise you on what medications to give for this.

What else should you do if your baby has a stomach ache?

When bloated. Insert a special gas outlet tube (sterilized and lubricated with Vaseline) into the anus. A thermometer will also work: lubricate the end with vegetable oil or Vaseline, insert and move slightly.
For spasmodic pain. Try putting something warm on your tummy: an ironed diaper, a heating pad, or simply lay your baby with his tummy facing you - this relieves muscle spasms. Placing it on your tummy for about ten minutes before feeding will also help avoid pain after eating.

What medications will help?

In no case should you give your newborn any medications without a doctor’s prescription, even if they were recommended to you and claimed that they “help without fail.” No one can diagnose and prescribe treatment for your baby better than a specialist.

However, there are some safe medications that can be used for digestive problems. If a newborn has a tummy ache and the symptoms are clear, using these remedies you can try to do at least something to alleviate the condition of the child’s gastrointestinal tract.

Vomiting and diarrhea. The body is deprived of fluid, the danger of internal intoxication increases, chloride, potassium and sodium salts, which are important for the normal functioning of the stomach, are washed out. “Gastrolit” and “Regidron” will help to replenish the water balance and saturate the body with useful salts - the drugs must be dissolved in water, as indicated in the instructions, and given to the baby. Of course, you can just give boiled water (little by little, but often) - this will help avoid dehydration.
Bloating and gas formation during poisoning. Enterosorbents will help - drugs that absorb harmful substances from the intestines and stomach. These are drugs such as Enterosgel and Smecta.
Diarrhea, intestinal infection, poisoning. To restore the intestinal microflora, antimicrobial, antitoxic and immunomodulatory drugs are needed. These include Enterol, Hilak Forte and Linex for the little ones.

If an infant has a stomach ache, and you don’t know what to do before the doctor arrives, first of all, do not try to feed the baby; in most cases, this will not only not calm the capricious baby, but can also aggravate the situation. This especially applies to cases where the baby has vomited repeatedly. We remind you: if vomiting does not stop, call an ambulance immediately.

A child’s digestion is definitely in order if:

weight gain occurs according to age;
after feeding, the baby rarely burps, but a little milk comes out;
after feeding, the baby is in a good mood and has a soft tummy;
there is no mucus or green in the stool, it is homogeneous and does not have a too strong odor.

In many cases that are incomprehensible to you due to their manifestations (the baby cannot tell what exactly happened to him), only a specialist knows what to do if a newborn has a tummy ache. Be sure to call an ambulance if the pain continues for an hour or more, the baby has a fever, vomiting, the stool is dark or reddish, the tummy is very tense (all or just in one area), and touching it causes a violent negative reaction. And, of course, remain calm and do not leave your child’s side - only next to you will the baby feel at least a little better.

Colic in newborn babies is probably the most common problem that parents face. The child starts crying, and the parents, especially if this is their first child, go crazy from his screams and the inability to help in any way to alleviate the baby’s suffering. Let's try to find out why colic occurs in babies and how to prevent tummy pain.

Colic in newborns. Problem Basics

In fact, current literature on the care of newborn babies does not use the word “colic” to describe abdominal pain in newborn babies. Usually they talk about “gas cars”. However, no matter what you call it, the problem remains: the baby is crying, the parents are panicking.

Tummy problems begin in children within 2 weeks after birth. Moreover, boys experience this kind of pain much more often. Girls have a lower percentage. Although among all children, according to more or less available data, more than 65% suffer to some extent from excess gas formation in the intestines and accompanying pain. Those. The problem is quite common and typical. But why does it arise?

Pediatricians usually talk about a lack of lactase, a special enzyme produced by the cells of the baby’s small intestine. Or about his lack of activity. This enzyme breaks down the milk sugar (lactose) present in mother's milk, after which the carbohydrates can be absorbed by the baby's body. And carbohydrates are energy, without it you can’t go anywhere.

To determine lactose deficiency, the doctor gives a referral to analyze the baby’s stool for the presence of carbohydrates. If there are more than 1% carbohydrates, then lactose deficiency is diagnosed.

But let's think about it. In a newborn baby, the entire intestinal microflora is just forming. What if he is fed very often? What if it has its own rhythm of development and formation of beneficial microflora? Of course, in such cases there will be some lack of lactase and, as a result, increased gas formation in the baby’s intestines.

Colic (gas). Causes.

The causes of gas in newborn babies are usually associated with insufficient breakdown of milk sugar (lactase). This leads to excess gas formation, which is accompanied by abdominal pain. After flatulence (eruption of gases or, simply put, farting), the pain goes away. And so on until the next portion.

Now imagine yourself in the baby’s place. Besides the pain in his tummy, every fart scares him, at least at first. There is something to make you cry both day and night. Is it possible to help him somehow, or should he wait until 3-5 months, when the long-awaited beneficial microflora in the child’s intestines will finally be formed and the increased gas formation will stop?

Colic in babies. Solution

In fact, in case of frequent abdominal pain in newborn babies, the following actions are recommended:

Many mothers who have followed the path of natural feeding of children are very opposed to the last three methods. They believe that over time, the intestinal microflora will form on its own, and no medications should be interfered with in this process.

Even in the maternity hospital, the newborn undergoes the first treatment of the umbilical wound. This procedure is usually performed by an obstetrician in the first moments after cutting the umbilical cord. Further care for this very vulnerable place of the baby falls on the shoulders of his parents. In reality, if the mother follows the basic rules of care and treatment of umbilical cancer, then its healing occurs quite quickly, in about a week. If you ignore this event, then an inflammatory process may develop in the navel area with redness of the skin and an increase in body temperature. Such symptoms should be a signal to urgently contact a specialist.

In order to carry out this at home, parents, even before the newborn arrives at home, will have to take care of equipping a baby first aid kit, which should contain the following items:

hydrogen peroxide solution;
brilliant green solution;
pipette;
cotton pads and sticks.

The treatment procedure is as follows: first, the resulting crusts are softened with hydrogen peroxide, then carefully removed with a cotton pad and the wound is treated with brilliant green. During the healing of the umbilical wound, it is impossible for water to get into it, so you need to bathe your baby very carefully or even avoid this hygienic procedure for a while.

Umbilical hernia of newborns

Problems with stool in newborns

The gastrointestinal tract of a newborn child cannot yet fully perform its functions, the microflora is in the stage of formation, and the process of adaptation to new living and nutritional conditions is also taking place, especially in babies who are bottle-fed. All these factors can affect the child in the form of some problems with stool. The most common are the following:

, which is especially characteristic of babies who are bottle-fed, and is considered normal if nothing bothers the baby. If the child defecates with effort, cries, and his stool is too hard in consistency or there is no stool for about 5 days, then we can talk about constipation.
, which is often accompanied by abdominal pain and bloating. The baby's stool may contain mucus and have an unpleasant odor. In such cases, it is possible to judge which requires treatment. Frequent loose stools in a child can lead to dehydration, so drinking plenty of fluids is recommended. At home, for children older than one month of age, you can use.

Regurgitation in babies

— This problem is known to many parents of newborn babies. To avoid regurgitation, after each feeding the baby must be held in an upright position for some time. This way he can burp up the air that gets inside during feeding. As a rule, this measure is quite sufficient, but if regurgitation continues and is systematic, it is better to show the baby to a specialist in order to recognize serious health problems in time.

Colds

The immunity of the youngest children is very weak, so they are susceptible to various colds, which can result in a cough and runny nose, and it is necessary to fight them, since in the future various complications may arise.

Thus, knowing about the main problems that accompany newborn babies in the first year of life, it will be easier for parents to diagnose them and take adequate measures. All parents dream of seeing their children healthy, so they must take care of their well-being.

There should be a special diet for a nursing mother with colic. Although there are many reasons for their occurrence, you will still need to make adjustments to your diet. Some foods will have to be excluded so as not to provoke a worsening of the condition.

Signs of tummy problems in your baby

The composition of breast milk directly depends on the products that the mother consumes and in what quantity. The immature digestive system of newborns means that any errors lead to unwanted symptoms. Intestinal colic is accompanied by increased formation of gases, resulting in pain and flatulence.

The causes of colic in a newborn may be reduced production of enzyme substances, disruption of the process of bile production, intestinal dysbiosis (opportunistic flora predominates over bifidobacteria and lactobacilli). Over time, when the body gets used to the new way of eating, the functioning of the organs will improve and the symptoms will go away. Most often this occurs at 4 months of life.

Signs that your baby has colic:

sudden onset of pain;
the child becomes capricious, restless, sleeps poorly, and often spits up;
children bend their legs to their tummy, grunt and cry;
the stomach feels tense and hard to the touch;
you can hear rumbling in your tummy;
the stool does not change its consistency, color and its regularity is not disturbed;
as soon as the gases leave, the condition improves.

Attacks most often develop after feeding and in the evening, before bedtime. The child's condition improves after defecation or passing of gas. A woman during lactation should eat frequently and in small portions.

In addition to colic, newborn babies often suffer from constipation. Constipation is considered to be the absence of bowel movements for more than two days. At the same time, the child cries, often strains, grunts, and presses his legs to his tummy. If the child is fed formula, it is recommended to change it to another brand. If the baby is breastfed, then the mother will need to reconsider her diet.

Diet principles

Breastfeeding women should follow a diet in any case, especially if there are problems with the baby’s health. The basic rules of the diet are as follows:

To prevent your child from feeling oversaturated, overeating, and having problems digesting milk, you need to count calories. No more than 3500 kcal should be eaten per day. There is no need to load the menu with fatty, salty, spicy foods.
The diet should contain a sufficient amount of liquid. Plain water, unsweetened and not too strong black or green tea, juices, compotes will do. Milk cannot replenish the lack of fluid.
Meat must be present, but only lean varieties. You only need to steam or simmer.
Be sure to exclude products that contribute to increased gas formation.

Over time, the diet can be supplemented with various foods, but until three months you need to adhere to a strict diet. After introducing a new product, you need to monitor the child’s condition. If the condition has not changed, then you can continue to eat the product, gradually increasing the portion.

Prohibited Products

Any food eaten by a nursing mother and processed passes into breast milk. Some foods may pose a threat to the baby's body. You need to especially carefully monitor nutrition in the first months of a child’s life, when his gastrointestinal tract is adapting to new conditions. At this time, the diet for colic in newborns must be treated with the utmost severity.

Products that contribute to the development of constipation and colic in a breastfed baby include:

products containing milk protein, for example, condensed milk, milk, ice cream;
products including cereals with gluten: wheat, oats, barley, rye;
Do not eat citrus fruits or any fruit juices;
If you eat the following foods in large quantities, you will also experience abdominal pain: soy, eggs, peanuts, seafood.

Mom's nutrition must be correct. All foods that contribute to gas formation are excluded: raw vegetables, legumes, fresh baked goods, raisins, grapes. These foods cause colic, cramping and pain, as well as bloating.

It is forbidden to eat coffee, chocolate, carbonated drinks, some vegetables (onions, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkin), spices, black bread, smoked and spicy foods.

Prevention of constipation and colic in a child consists not only of adjusting the woman’s diet, but also of following certain rules:

It is imperative to follow the correct breastfeeding technique. The child should lie in a comfortable position and grasp the entire nipple areola.
It is useful to massage the abdomen. The child's tummy is stroked clockwise with a heated palm. The procedure is carried out before meals and an hour after meals.
The baby should be placed on his stomach as often as possible.
After feeding, the baby needs to be held in an upright position for some time so that excess air can escape.
It is useful to do gymnastics with your baby. Slowly and carefully, alternately pull your legs towards your tummy several times in a row.
Warm baths with the addition of chamomile decoction will help get rid of colic.

All these actions, combined with proper nutrition, will help the baby’s body absorb food faster, without developing unpleasant symptoms.

What should a mother eat during breastfeeding?

It is useful for a nursing mother to include foods such as cottage cheese, cheese, fermented baked milk, and yogurt without additives. It is better to bake, steam or stew vegetables, fruits, meat and fish. Sweets can be replaced with dried fruits or jam.

A nursing woman's diet should consist of safe and healthy foods that do not overload the functioning of the baby's digestive organs:

Vegetables (zucchini, potatoes, carrots) will enrich the body with vitamins and microelements. They should be included in the diet daily, but only baked or boiled. It is not recommended to eat tomatoes and cabbage, as they provoke the formation of gases.
As for fruits, it is best to choose apples (they need to be baked), cherries, plums, and bananas.
Lean meats (veal, rabbit, turkey, chicken) are considered healthy. It is better not to fry, but to stew the meat.
The permitted cereals are buckwheat, oatmeal, millet, rice, and barley.
Fermented milk products (kefir, natural yoghurts) are allowed.
You can add a little butter or vegetable oil to your dishes, but you should not overuse it.
Normal drinking regimen improves lactation. Allowed drinks: tea, compote, jelly, fruit juice. Cocoa and coffee are completely excluded from the diet.

If a baby has constipation, then foods such as dried apricots and prunes, apricots, boiled beets, apples, and pumpkin will help make the intestines work. It is best to pre-soak dried fruits in boiling water. And be sure to drink as much fluid as possible. This will dilute the breast milk if it is too rich.

An approximate menu for each day might look like this:

For breakfast you can prepare an omelet, porridge from permitted cereals, cottage cheese, rice with fruit. For drinks, you can choose weak tea with milk. The bread is only yesterday's bread, you can make a sandwich with butter and cheese.
For second breakfast you can make cottage cheese with dried fruits, cottage cheese casserole with jam.
For lunch you need to prepare soup, cereal, chicken or vegetable, mashed potatoes with steamed cutlets or meatballs, boiled fish or stewed vegetables. From drinks you can make compote, jelly.
An afternoon snack can consist of kefir with a bun or biscuits, cottage cheese with jam, or any kind of porridge. You can bake an apple or a pear.
For dinner you can cook boiled fish or meat, make stew, stewed cabbage rolls, vinaigrette. As a fruit, you can eat a banana.
Before going to bed, you can drink kefir or natural yogurt. It is especially useful to drink fermented milk drinks at night for constipation in infants.

By the end of the child's third month of life, you can gradually introduce foods from the list of prohibited foods, such as cheese, pasta, nuts, cauliflower and broccoli. By the middle of the fourth month, you can try introducing onions, honey, barley porridge, vegetable and fruit juices into your diet in small quantities.

It must be remembered that even when the newborn’s colic goes away, you must continue to follow the diet.

A nursing mother needs to introduce each new product into her diet separately, with an interval of 3-4 days, in order to understand whether the baby has a reaction to it or not.

Colic - pain in the tummy. They appear with crying, anxiety, and refusal to eat. They usually appear in the third or fourth week and disappear by the fourth month of the baby’s life. During this period, the baby has a swollen tummy, he bends his legs, trying to alleviate his condition in this way. You can learn more about the symptoms of colic.

Can there be colic during feeding or after breastfeeding?

Breast milk itself cannot cause colic if breastfeeding (BF) is organized correctly. It is important to note that it is best to feed the baby on demand, and not by the hour, then the two organisms will be able to adapt to each other as much as possible and many problems can be avoided. There are three most common feeding mistakes that can lead to colic during breastfeeding or cause baby behavior that the mother perceives as colic.

Brief feeding on one breast. In this case, the child receives mainly lactose-rich foremilk, while hindmilk, rich in fats, remains unclaimed. As a result, breast milk contains less calories, the baby requires breastfeeding more often, and the total amount of food consumed increases. Milk, rich in lactose, does not linger in the stomach and quickly enters the small intestine, where lactose is broken down by a special enzyme, lactase. Since there is too much lactose, it does not have time to be processed and enters the large intestine, where it causes fermentation processes and colic. All these phenomena are not related to - there is enough enzyme, there is simply too much lactose.
Mom gives two breasts at once during one feeding. Of course, if a child sucks one breast completely within 15-20 minutes, then there is nothing wrong when the mother gives him the second one if he is not satisfied. But more often it happens that after sucking for 5-10 minutes, the child begins to be capricious or falls asleep. The mother, thinking that the baby does not have enough milk, gives him a second breast. As a result, the process described in the first paragraph occurs, and tummy problems begin.
Milk flow too strong. Breast milk begins to flow in a rapid stream and the newborn, unable to keep up with it, turns away from the breast and becomes restless. The mother may mistakenly perceive all these signs as colic.

Another reason that can cause colic during breastfeeding is the mother’s food products, the processing components of which can penetrate first into the blood and then into breast milk.

Foods that cause colic during breastfeeding

Not all pediatricians agree with the opinion that gas formation in the baby’s digestive system is affected by the mother’s diet. However, experts advise adhering to a certain diet, especially in the first months after the birth of a child. It is important to note that such a restriction is effective at first, but then you can try consuming potentially dangerous foods in small portions, monitoring the baby’s reaction. If the child’s body does not accept the product, then it should be removed from the menu for a while.

The following foods are believed to cause colic in babies:

kvass, carbonated water;
rye bread (or with the addition of rye flour);
coffee, coffee drinks;
chocolate and products containing it;
fresh milk;
fresh vegetables and fruits;
legume products;
seasonings, sauces, etc.

This list includes not only products that cause increased gas formation, but also fresh milk. The fact is that milk protein, entering the child’s body, can affect the child’s condition and cause colic. This is most often the so-called intolerance to cow's milk protein (allergy to cow's milk protein is much less common), which, according to the mechanism of its occurrence, is not an allergy and will go away on its own when the baby gets older.

A mother should always remember that it is necessary to observe moderation with any product, and if she drinks just a little fresh milk, this is unlikely to affect the child. Only a large volume of food eaten can increase the chances of a potentially dangerous substance entering the baby’s body and causing a response.

You can learn more about foods that can cause colic and allergies.

An approximate weekly menu for a nursing mother can be found.

Tea for nursing mothers against colic

Sometimes pediatricians recommend that mothers drink chamomile tea and fennel decoction. In some cases, such methods really help. However, not all experts agree with this method of treatment. The fact is that processed products from decoctions and additives will enter the child’s body. They will not bring much benefit to the baby. Rather, they will streamline the digestive processes in the body of a nursing mother. Therefore, it is more advisable to give your baby chamomile tea, a decoction of dill (fennel) or special water.

Colic during artificial and mixed feeding

There is often an opinion among mothers that colic necessarily plagues formula-fed (IV) babies, but this is not always the case. These phenomena are observed both in breastfed and formula-fed children, since the main reason for their occurrence is not the type of nutrition, but the maturation of the child’s digestive system and disorders of its nervous regulation. However, not all pediatricians agree with this version and believe that colic can also appear in

Important! The type of food a newborn is fed does not affect the occurrence of colic, which can occur both on artificial and breastfeeding.

It’s another matter if we are talking about differences in the frequency of their occurrence and intensity. Breast milk, as a natural product intended by nature itself to nourish a baby, is best suited for him, and if it is replaced with a formula, especially in the first months of life, then the likelihood of colic becoming greater.

Other reasons include using bottles with the wrong nipple. In pharmacies you can find regular and orthodontic nipples. The latest models are shaped very similar to a woman's nipple. During feeding, the baby swallows a minimum of air along with the milk. It is also worth paying attention to models with an anti-vacuum system. It prevents the nipple from sticking together during feeding. Read more about anti-colic bottles

The baby's body may also not accept a certain brand of formula. In this case, you need to try giving a product from another manufacturer and monitor the reaction of the child’s body.

On sale, along with regular baby food formulas, there are formulas with a composition specially developed for colic for newborns, containing. Depending on the cause of colic, different formulas can be recommended for bottle-fed or mixed-fed children.

For children whose colic is caused by decreased intestinal motility, leading to stagnation of gases and constipation, it is better to use locust bean gum, which will promote bowel movements.
Used for children with lactase deficiency