Reflux Guide eBook-1 - Calming Colic · Medications your baby might be on for reflux The treatment...

A step by step guide tohelping your baby’s refluxand silent reflux problems

A step by step guide tohelping your baby’s refluxand silent reflux problems

by Christian Bates

Hi there,

I’m really pleased this ebook has found its way to you as I have a passion and mission to help upset, crying, irritable, colicky and non-sleeping babies. You can also add to this list babies suffering reflux or silent reflux. My aim in this ebook is to help you and your baby by explaining why they have reflux and to then guide you through as much of my treatment plan as I can. These are the same steps I take to successfully treat babies with reflux every working day of the week. All that will be missing from this plan is my actual hands on, cranial osteopathic treatment.

But let me introduce myself, my name is Christian Bates and I run a very busy natural health clinic in Haywards Heath called The Perrymount Clinic. I have been an osteopath and naturopath for nearly 20 years and specialise in treating babies and children. I have also written a book on baby health called Calming Colic - How to help the 10 causes of colic and I’m pleased to say that this is fifth ebook on top of that. I love putting the knowledge and experience I have picked up over the years onto paper and into the hands of those that need it.

YOU! The parent with the upset baby with reflux.

I hope to explain myself easily to you and get you on the path to helping your baby very soon.

In this ebook I want to give you some much needed guidance on the extremely common symptom of baby reflux or silent reflux. Babies distressed from reflux come to see me for treatment at The Perrymount Clinic everyday. I see first hand how awful and what a struggle it is for the baby and parents to cope with this. Not to mention the endless washing of bibs, muslins and you own clothes! But let’s not joke, these babies are really struggling and it puts stress and strain on everyone. Despite this let me tell you I am always very confident that I can help these babies because I have done it many times before and have formulated a really effective protocol to give to the parents to use at home and also one that I use for my hands on treatment. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it can be a bit tricky as every baby is different, but I will try my best to give you all the different options available to you.

I have seen many babies with reflux, some have been sick over 20 times per day although most are sick after every feed which is worrying enough for you. When I first started treating babies nearly 20 years ago the most common problem parents brought their babies to me to see me for was colic. But now I would say reflux is more common. Why? I hear you ask. Well I’ve been asking myself the same question! And I will answer it in this ebook. It is a strange phenomenon though and I believe it is down to multiple factors revolving around the birth and the baby’s first few moments in this world. These multiple factors I will explain to you and provide a solution if they happened to you and your baby.

IMPORTANT: I am sure you have seen your GP already, but if you haven’t you should. When it comes to reflux the most important thing is obviously the health of your baby so you must make sure that your baby is gaining weight. If they aren’t gaining weight then it is definitely a matter for the GP and you must follow their advice. However, most of the babies I see are have awful reflux but are gaining weight just fine, which ironically means they don’t get that much help. This then leaves their happiness and treating the cause over to me. All the natural advice in here is complementary and you can follow it at the same time as the medical advice, it won’t interfere but you must never substitute it for what your GP has told you to do.

I really hope you and your family benefit from reading this ebook but of course I can’t get everything across through text and also I learn something new everyday from the babies I see so please feel free to email me or contact me over Facebook messenger on the The Perrymount Clinic’s Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/theperrymountclinic

And of course please let me know if anything here helps!

Kind regards

www.theperrymount.com01Call Today: 01444 410944


What is Reflux?Orthodox v’s naturopathic point of viewI want to quickly explain to you what reflux is, at least I want to remind you what you have probably been told it is and then give you a different version of what I think it is! And the CAUSES are quite different.

Naturopaths and nutritionists have a completely different view on acid reflux than that held by doctors of orthodox medicine. This really mainly applies to adults but in babies the same treatments are applied. In fact babies are given adult medication but at lower doses.

Medications your baby might be on for refluxThe treatment is different too. The medical community gives anti-acid medication which stops the stomach producing acid so the reflux isn’t acidic and painful, thus relieving the symptoms. This is basically what Gaviscon, Ranitidine, Omeprazol and Domperidone do for babies (they work in slightly different ways actually but this is basically how they work).

Orthodox medicine believes that the stomach is producing excess acid which refluxes and burns the throat; making the baby very unhappy. Naturopaths like myself, in most cases understand that the stomach is LOW in acid and so doesn’t digest the food correctly. The result is that the food has to spend more time in the stomach before it is allowed to move on and consequently some of it refluxes into the throat burning it. So the same issue - burning acid throat, but totally opposite cause behind it.

Naturopaths however give enzymes to AID and WORK WITH the stomach acid, to improve the digestion and help the food move into the intestines without reflux. This is the approach in adults, however this is not so easy in babies, although it is possible to give lactase, an enzyme to help digest the milk sugar lactose prior to the baby drinking it. So you can try an enzyme on the market that goes into a bottle of milk to pre-digest it. The problem being the enzyme has to go into a bottle of milk so if you are breast feeding you have to express first and the whole thing becomes quite tricky as the milk has to stand whilst the enzyme works.

I don’t do this that often, I prefer to use cranial osteopathy and probiotics to achieve positive results.However, if the baby’s reflux is due to something in the mother’s diet (like excess dairy products) getting into the breast milk and instigating the reflux then it can be very helpful for the mother to take digestive enzymes so her food is completely digested before being incorporated into the milk. Similase will help digest both the milk sugars and milk proteins. I use Similase from Nutri. You can order these by calling 0800 212 742.

Breast milk and formula aggravating reflux in your baby


It is important for you to realise that the baby’s anti-acid medication is working

against their natural digestion process. The baby drinks its milk and the tiny amount of acid its stomach

produces digests this milk so that it passes into the intestines where the nutrients in the milk are absorbed into the

bloodstream. I have mentioned that Gaviscon and other medication suppresses this process, which is fine if there actually is

excessive acid and as long as the milk still gets digested properly.

If this digestion process doesn’t work because the Gaviscon has neutralised the stomach acid then the milk isn’t digested correctly and the baby won’t be absorbing the nutrients from the milk as well as it could. In adults anti-acids have been shown to increase food allergy because of this process. So although I don’t advise you to come off medication that a doctor has told you to use I want you to understand the mechanisms behind the causes of reflux and the medications that are used.

This can be a bit of a minefield if your baby’s food is behind the reflux. The reason being if you are breast feeding then you need to examine the foods you are eating, which just takes a bit of effort on your part obviously. If it’s a formula feed that might be aggravating your baby’s reflux then you will have to perhaps change the formula and experiment a little, but basically you are stuck to some degree with the formulas available.

Foods eaten by mother pass via her breast milkIt is well understood now that the food a breast feeding mother eats DOES influence their baby. Although most of the research in this area is more to do with colic and wind in the baby rather than reflux. However I prefer to make sure this base is also covered when treating babies with reflux. The most common issues are lactose intolerance (a sugar) and cow’s milk protein intolerance. If you are breast feeding you basically need to avoid all dairy foods if this is the case for your baby, so steer clear of milk, cheese, yoghurts etc. This will be an experiment at the start so you will need to cut dairy out of your diet and see if your baby improves. It’s that simple.


I have written four ebooks on diets for new mums and breast feeding mums

• Eating mistakes made by new mums• Healthy eating advice for pregnant, breast feeding and new mums• Safe & effective weight loss for new mums• Recipes and food plan for new mums

These are available as part of my total Baby Happiness Package at www.thehappybabyproject.com

http://www.theperrymount.com/baby/arefoodsupsettingyourbaby.html

This is my biggest tip to track down the food that might be aggravating your baby’s digestive problems, it’s usually the food you are overdoing. New mum’s usually know this and when I say it they have a sort of knowing look on their face. The reason being is that new mums diets are generally very poor. You are rushed looking after your new baby and put them before yourself, especially your own healthy eating.

There are other foods on top of dairy that might be a trigger. I personally like to advise mums to look at a low FODMAPS diet plan which contains foods to avoid that create wind and digestive issues. You can download this low FODMAPS food list and instructions on its use from this link.

I want to stress this to you though; it DOESN’T mean your baby has to have an issue with dairy in the future. Most of the time the problem is that babies have weak digestive enzymes in their stomach system to breakdown these proteins and sugars in milk, especially if they are premature. Considering breast milk is the perfect food for babies it would seem fair to say that they can cope with the naturally found nutrients in the breast milk, or at least they should be able to. However, if you were to overload yourself with excessive dairy products in your diet, which puts more lactose and milk proteins in your breast milk then your baby’s own enzymes produced in their stomach may not be able to then cope with the extra milk proteins and they get an issue, like reflux or colic.

Formula milkThe basics of your baby being sensitive to their formula is that it is a cow’s milk rather than human breast milk. It is worth having a change around of formulas to see if your baby gets on better with a different one. In general I would recommend changing to Aptimel or Hipp organic. Purely because parents seem to tell me their baby gets on better with these.

These are other issues I commonly see when a baby is sensitive to cow’s milk:

Prescription formula Intolerance to cow’s milk formulas if severe enough will be picked up by the medical profession and they have a few prescription formulas that they can recommend which have had the irritating sugar (lactose) from the milk removed. There is also a cows milk protein free formula too. If your baby improves on the prescription formula then it might be that you are happy to continue using it. I would stress here that you use the same approach that I have advised throughout this ebook which is to still look at the other options I have suggested, like cranial osteopathy and probiotics.


Don’t forget that a breast fed baby can also experience these if the mother is eating excessive dairy.

Once these issues are corrected you may be able to go back to a regular formula, and even if this is not possible as they have a definite cow’s milk intolerance then it still is highly beneficial to have corrected their gut flora and had a cranial osteopathy check up anyway. More on these topics coming up.

The reason is that although the new formula may have worked you will want to look at the true cause behind your baby’s irritated digestive system. If for example the birth was traumatic or they have imbalanced gut flora, from a C-section birth or antibiotic use, this could be the reason, not the original cow’s milk formula.

Colic Cradle cap

Blocked tear duct/eye infectionSpots & rashes and other skin irritationsEczema, mucous, cough, bronchiolitis,

recurrent infection, ear infection.

Does the anti-reflux milk makes your baby worse?Here is another big tip for you. The anti-reflux milks may make your baby WORSE. You will know this very quickly because your baby will be upset fairly quickly after having the feed. The reason being is that these milks are thicker. The idea being that because they are thicker they stay down in the stomach because they are literally heavier.

The enzymes in real foodFood that is natural, healthy and alive - like fruits and vegetables have their own enzymes and these enzymes will naturally be incorporated into the mother. What’s interesting is that the dairy (milk, cheese, most yoghurts, chocolate etc.) that we eat from the supermarket do NOT have live enzymes in as the heat treatment it undergoes destroys the enzymes. Therefore much of the processed food we all eat and mothers in particular as they are rushed off their feet looking after a new baby have NO ENZYMES in them. Therefore the little baby has to rely more and more on it’s own immature digestion to break down it’s mothers milk.


Just think about it for a moment, put yourself in your baby’s tiny socks. You have stomach ache, you are finding it hard to digest your formula, it is sitting in your stomach churning and churning away and some is refluxing up and you don’t like it. You then get fed a thicker formula, which barely gets through the bottles teat, and that lands in your stomach! Is it easier or harder to digest? It’s harder!

Okay so there are two points of view here. The manufacturers think that a thicker formula won’t reflux so much as it sits heavier. If it works for your baby then great, please continue. However, in many of the babies I see it makes them worse, sometimes a lot worse. Because their immature digestion can’t handle the thicker formula and the thin formula they were on before is NOT the issue. It’s something else, which we what to find and correct.This scenario I have just explained of the thicker milk is very similar to the scenario of Gaviscon making the baby worse because it thickens the milk too.

And by the way formula milk is exactly like this, it has NO enzymes in it. Formula milk therefore cannot help break its self down and must fully rely on the baby’s stomach enzymes. Breast milk on the other hand is alive and has enzymes from the mothers diet and will therefore actually assist in breaking itself down.This is another reason to eat really well yourself, as I have laid out in my other ebooks specifically for supporting new mums’ health. All my ebooks are bundled up into a happy baby complete package at www.thehappybabyproject.com.

Caesarean birthYou might think that a C-section birth is the least traumatic of any type of delivery; however it can be quite the opposite, in fact some of the most irritable, upset, screaming babies have had a C-section. A C-section that isn’t pre-scheduled usually comes about because a natural birth hasn’t worked in some way. It often means that the use of forceps or venteuse has been attempted and failed, causing some trauma to the baby’s head. It might also mean that the natural birth has failed to develop and the baby’s head has got stuck in the birth canal, resulting in strong contractions on its head and compressing the spine for an extended period of time without any progression.

Your delivery


The delivery the mother and baby have gone through is one of the most important factors in why reflux is a problem. In fact it is one of the most important factors in your baby’s life believe it or not, for their health now and in the future. I wrote about this extensively in my book Calming Colic - How to help the 10 causes of colic. These are the births that can possible have a factor in your baby’s reflux:

All of these traumatic births can be contributory causes of colic and reflux. The birth doesn’t even have to be labelled “traumatic”; you know after all that the easiest, most straightforward of birth is a big deal to you and your baby. Some of the worst symptoms I have seen in babies are from very quick births and C-sections, especially planned C-sections believe it or not, so we must be aware that any birth can be problematic.

I write a lot more extensively about each of these birth types in Calming Colic so here I will give you the essence in regard to reflux:

Difficult long birthsInstrument delivery:ForcepsVenteuse

Kiwi Quick birthsC-sectionsPlanned C-section

These babies tend to “arch” backwards a lot and don’t like laying on their back. They prefer laying on their front with their bottom in the air.

If the C-section is planned and no actual birth contractions have occurred then the baby has no idea it is going to be born, so it can suffer from shock at being pulled out. Imagine yourself being in the womb, nice and cosy and warm, and then all of a sudden a hand comes in and pulls you out without warning.

Why C-sections cause refluxIn both scenarios the baby hasn’t been stretched out and elongated through the birth canal during a vaginal delivery. What happens after a C-section to create reflux is the baby’s spine remains curved in the foetal position, like a ball. Their legs always raise up in the air and they love being held all the time in a little ball up on your shoulder, parents often nickname these babies their little “frog”. Their body retains the desire to be back in the position they were in when comfortably inside you, i.e. the curled up foetal position.


Planned C-section

I picture it as the equivalent of an adult being fast asleep in bed, with the duvet over them, lovely and warm and then at 2 am someone sneaking in, ripping the duvet off, picking you up and chucking you in a cold lake! A bit shocking I think you’ll agree. And the baby can retain this shock and be an irritable, upset little thing.

I have also seen the complete opposite where C-section babies remain quite sleepy as they haven’t had the vaginal birth to wake them up.

These babies bring their legs up in the air and often roll onto their side to sleep. They also don’t like laying on their back and they may prefer the upright curve of the car seat. They also like being held on your chest in a tight little ball and jiggled around constantly.

Deliveries by these instruments usually show clearly as marks on the baby’s head including grazes, bruising and haematoma or basically “lumps & bumps”. For most babies these injuries clear extremely rapidly but to a cranial osteopath they give a clue as to where we should look in order to calm and release tension through the bones of the skull. The “tightest” heads I feel are usually after forceps deliveries but this isn’t necessarily the case as interestingly planned C-section babies also have a tight feeling to them too. As a side note it is very common for toddlers that don’t sleep to have this general tense feel that keeps them constantly alert and unable to settle into a deep, peaceful sleep.


An osteopathic principle is that our spine affects the function of all our organs because the nerve supply to the organs comes from the spine. Have a look at the diagram below showing at what level the nerves come out and go to the organs. In the case of reflux, which affects the stomach and the valves of the stomach that allows milk in and then stops it coming out the nerve supply is from between the shoulder blades and also from a nerve that originates from behind the ear, the vagus nerve, more on this later.

What osteopaths believe (and I can confirm is true because it’s how I help babies with reflux) is that the curve in the spine alters how the stomach functions and allows milk to reflux up and out, or up into the throat, without the vomiting, which is silent reflux. Osteopathy gently unravels the baby and stretches them out from their ball into a normal position that allows the milk to pass down nicely and the stomach to function correctly.

You could go so far as to say I’m not even treating “reflux”, what I am doing balances the spine, removes the problem of the “balled up” position and whatever wants to improve from this will. It allows the baby to help itself, in naturopathic terms this is called “removing obstacles to cure”, removing the problem and letting the baby just be as it wants to be. Which is happy with no reflux!You might have noticed this has nothing to do with acid or lack of it and we don’t see the baby as having a Gavison deficiency!

If this nerve idea seems strange to you then consider it from a purely mechanical point of view. You feed your baby and it gets a nice full-up tummy, it might even over-fill as babies do tend to feed too much if you allow them, especially from the bottle. Then they bring their legs and knees up, compress themselves through the tummy and stomach and literally push the milk up and out. Think of yourself having a huge meal and then someone pushing on your stomach, not nice.

Instrument delivery (forceps, venteuse, kiwi)


The evidence of these pressures and strains may not be apparent as the soft, malleable heads of babies revert to a normal shape very quickly. However a cranial osteopath can still feel those strains with their practised and refined palpitation.

I try to get parents who come to see me to imagine this stress on the baby’s head. For example, after a venteuse the top of the head may retain the strain of being pulled and after a forceps delivery there may still be the feeling of clamping or compression.

I regularly see babies suffering from irritation around their heads. They may not like laying down on the back of their head, often they find having their clothes pulled over their head really annoying and they especially don’t like having hats put on. Also some babies will frequently have their hands up to their face and ears as if they are trying to rub themselves, however most of the time they just end up scratching themselves, often in their ears. These are really clear indicators to me that the baby needs some birth tension relieved with cranial osteopathy.

Why instrument deliveries might cause refluxa The reason instrument deliveries are applicable to reflux is that the nerve supplying the stomach and its valves can be irritated at birth. This nerve is called the Vagus nerve and originates from behind our ears and travels down our body supplying virtually all our internal organs. I have briefly mentioned this already. Again this is a long standing osteopathic theory and modern science on this is slowly catching up with our theories. Therefore if your baby had an instrument delivery or long birth where they got stuck and had contractions on their head this nerve maybe irritated

and be sending signals that alter stomach and gut function. For example, it may be influencing the top stomach value to stay open slightly which allows milk reflux. If it slows the bowel down the milk may pass through slower and so the sugars ferment more, creating more wind and then the baby has colic pain

Back and neck archingBack and neck arching are basically the opposite of what occurs after a C-section. This time the babies arch themselves backwards. This shows that they are tense in the spine, usually in the neck and upper spine between the shoulder blades. The delivery associated with this pattern is often a prolonged one where the end stage has been long with the baby’s head being stuck having repeated contractions on it or even going in and out like a bungee. Often if the baby is in a back to back position this extension or arching happens too.


When this happens parents mention to me that their baby has a strong neck. It seems that as parents we are always looking for our babies to develop quickly and be the first to do something, so when they lift their little heads up to look around we get very excited! However, when they are very new and are doing this a little earlier than is expected it often accompanies the arching mentioned above, and therefore might be that they are a tight from the birth rather than having a strong neck. As with the curled up C-section babies an osteopath can gently release this and allow the baby to not be so stiff.

So in virtually the same way as C-section babies have reflux these babies can too. The tight area between the shoulder blades influences the stomach and can make it more susceptible to refluxing milk. And again the physical movement of arching backwards can push the milk up from a full tummy.

Antibiotics making reflux worse I mentioned earlier that for some reason reflux is on the increase. I used to treat babies mostly for colic but now most have reflux too. I can think of a few reasons for this change that repeatedly come up in the case histories of babies with reflux. Firstly, the rate of C-sections are in general on the increase at about 25% of deliveries. Although I know first hand from speaking at midwifery conferences that the midwives are actively trying hard to reduce this number. Secondly, a huge amount of the babies I see have been exposed to antibiotics. I will tell you what this does to your baby’s friendly gut bacteria a bit later. I really noticed a big correlation between antibiotics and colic at first but now it is so obvious with reflux too. I wasn’t exactly sure of the mechanism but had to assume it was the same mechanism that antibiotics are well known for which is a lowering and altering of our beneficial gut bacteria. Only recently did I stumble across some research confirming my clinical experience.

This scientific research found that babies born via C-section, and those treated with antibiotics early in life appear more prone to allergic inflammation of the oesophagus, a condition known as eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE). I had never previously heard of this, and I’m not overly bothered by names of diseases, I’m far more bothered by the cause and how to help the baby that has it. But this certainly sounds like a problem I was seeing, maybe more like silent reflux that so many babies are being diagnosed with. This is a summary from the study and it is basically true across the board for colic and other issues so I’m right behind it:

“Further studies are needed to establish the precise mechanism by which C-section birth and antibiotics precipitate the disease, but investigators believe that antibiotic use in infancy appears to impede the growth of certain beneficial gut bacteria responsible for digestive health and normal immunity, and that C-section delivery prevents a baby’s exposure to important maternal bacteria in the vaginal canal that go on to colonise a baby’s gut and help build immunity.” So we have antibiotics and C-section being a big factor in colic (as explained in depth in my book Calming Colic) and now scientifically found to be making babies prone to inflammation of the oesophagus. The oesophagus connects the mouth to

the stomach. The researchers also note that this allergic response appears to be on the rise in children just as I have seen too.

This is another important quote from this same study that I believe too: “It is becoming increasingly clear that the early development and composition of our gut bacteria can influence immunity for life,” says study lead investigator Corinne Keet, M.D., Ph.D., a paediatric allergist at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Centre. “Now, our findings suggest that delivery via C-section and early treatment with antibiotics also play an important role in this serious allergic disease.”

The actual results of this study are really significant. 99 children were investigated. The rate of having allergic inflammation of the oesophagus was 3 times higher in C-section births and 3.5 times higher among babies treated with antibiotics in the first year of life.

The current best solution to this is to give your baby a specialist friendly probiotic supplement (I use Biogaia Protectis). I use this with all the babies I see with great beneficial results. Later I have a section on probiotics. This is absolutely the “in” thing at the moment, the gut bacteria and what happens to our children if they are not exposed to a vaginal delivery to pass the mothers bacteria to them or they are given antibiotics which knock the friendly bacteria out for possibly life long detrimental effects.


Friendly gut flora or bacteriaSo let’s now briefly look into the gut flora as I have mentioned it throughout this ebook in small segments.A baby’s intestines and bowel are thought to be totally sterile at the time of birth and they are colonised with bacteria from the environment that surrounds them, primarily from the mother’s vagina if delivered in this way and subsequently from the surrounding environment and the people they come into contact with. This bacteria in the bowel has massive benefits and implications for the current and future health of your baby.

It plays a role in reflux, silent reflux, allergic inflammation of the oesophagus, colic and future issues such as colitis, eczema and allergy. I think it is so important here for me to emphasise FUTURE health; yes, we are looking to calm reflux right now, but the longer-term benefits for the health of your child through correcting the balance of bowel flora I think hold even more importance.

Babies born via vaginal delivery are exposed to certain maternal bacteria as they pass through the birth canal. Those bacteria colonize the newborn’s gut and help build immunity. Children born via C-section, however, miss out on this vital initial exposure to bacteria which may render their immune systems more sensitive to food and other generally harmless substances and as we have just learnt reflux.

Also, during the first year of life, the gut microbiome undergoes dramatic changes as the infant encounters various microorganisms in the environment. Antibiotics during this critical period may alter gut immunity because the drugs tend to cause collateral damage by wiping out “healthy” bacteria along with disease-causing ones which can lead to an imbalance between good and bad bacteria in the gut.


ProbioticsOne of the main approaches I have to helping the babies that come in to see me for reflux, colic, not sleeping, crying excessively etc is the use of a probiotic supplement that basically puts more good or friendly gut bacteria into the mother and baby. I have been using probiotics for a long time and the results are really fabulous and they basically have no side effects, if anything they may briefly make the baby a bit more windy.

The probiotic I use, called Biogaia Protectis actually has specific research on assisting babies with reflux, or gastroesophageal reflux (GER) as the researchers called it. It was found that the probiotic reduced stomach bloating and increased the speed at which the milk passed through the stomach and so decreased the amount of regurgitation.

I have explained that a cause behind reflux can be a change in your baby’s gut bacteria, most often from C-section or antibiotic use. The probiotics are to help correct this aspect. The cranial osteopathy is used to help correct the physical issues the baby has, like arching or staying curled in a ball.

At the moment best option in these situations is to use probiotics, however what is happening in some parts of the world is that the mothers vagina is swabbed for the beneficial bacteria and this is then introduced to the baby if they have a C-section.


Probiotics and the vagus nerveDo you remember the vagus nerve I mentioned previously? It controls the stomach’s upper valve stopping the milk reflux up. Well this is an amazing nerve and more and more is being found out about it all the time. It is a super highway of information from the brain to our internal organs but in fact 80% of it is sensory,

My treatment for your babyThe babies I see with reflux benefit HUGELY from the treatment I give them which is a combination of cranial osteopathy and some other extremely gentle techniques I have developed myself to release their spine. Although alterations in milk and the mothers diet and the use of probiotics form an integral part of the protocol I use to help babies with reflux I would never feel completely confident in my results if I weren't able to use my hands on techniques too. So many times myself and the mother are trying to fathom out the mystery of which formula milk is best or which food she is eating that might aggravate her breast feeding baby and in the mean time the treatment has helped so significantly that the baby has stopped refluxing anyway.

which means it feeds information about our organs back to our brain. This opens up an interesting use for probiotics. It means that if you use probiotics that help the stomach or bowel of your baby then they will actually be calming to the nervous system via the vagus nerve back to the brain. This means you get the added bonus of helping your baby sleep better and be more relaxed and calm!


Cranial osteopathyYou may notice that some bits of advice are repeated through this ebook. This is because I don’t look at babies for specifics, I look at them as a whole and often the treatments and advice seem similar. All babies are different however, no matter if they arrived into the world in a similar manner; one may have reflux following a forceps delivery, another may have no reflux but difficulty sleeping, and yet another won’t feed easily when turning its head to one particular side.

There are two important things I tell parents about cranial osteopathy. Firstly, it is extremely gentle and secondly it works WITH your baby. An osteopath will assist what your baby’s body is trying to achieve itself; to get better! All of our bodies will naturally be wanting to move towards health and this is especially potent in babies and children.

The cranial osteopathy treatment is so gentle you will barely see any movement from the osteopath’s hands and the majority of babies find it very relaxing and will lay contentedly during the treatment and usually fall asleep. I have a video of me treating a lovely new baby which you can watch here:http://www.theperrymount.com/babyhelp.html

So let me summarise my approach to a baby with reflux:

1) Have cranial osteopathy to gently correct any tightness in the head and spine of your baby. Call Christian Bates of The Perrymount on 01444 410944.

2) Use a probiotic to correct gut flora. I use Biogaia Protectis, available from www.thehappybabyproject.com

3) Mother checks her diet if breast feeding (download low - FODMAPS food plan) and improves her own diet too. Download new mum food plan here and recipe guide from www.thehappybabyproject.com

4) Experiment with change of formula.

Secondary

5) Mother takes enzyme supplement if breast feeding

www.theperrymount.comCall Today: 01444 410944

Testimonials I'm a midwife who has met Christian professionally and read his book calming colic, out of interest as a mum and a midwife. In September I gave birth to my 3rd child. At 3 weeks old my baby girl started getting colic. Something I was familiar with, as my other two children also suffered from colic until 3 months old. This time was slightly different though. My baby cried lots and lots and the only time someone didn't have to hold and cuddle her to stop her crying was when she was asleep. Trying to look after 2 other children whilst comforting my distressed baby was awful. Then at 5 weeks my baby became unwell with viral colitis resulting in her suffering from explosive watery nappies and blood in her stools. The GP unfortunately was not overly supportive so I contacted Christian out of desperation.

When I saw Christian his knowledge and experience of treating babies was outstanding and he diagnosed my little girl with silent reflux. Christian also suggested a probiotic for us both to take to normalise her bowel movements which then settled and normalised within a week. The osteopathy treatments on my little girl were relaxed and I was able to hold and cuddle my baby as needed. Following the first treatment I went home and looked up silent reflux. It perfectly described her symptoms. Once we knew what was wrong, it was easier to soothe my baby, keeping her upright, tilting the cot etc. We saw Christian for a course of 4 treatments, with each treatment we saw positive improvements and at the end of the 4 treatments my baby was much more settled and was happy lying flat. She also stopped bringing up feeds.

Nicola, midwife

Dear Christian,

I would like to thank you for your book (via my father). It has been a lifesaver! At 3 weeks our daughter developed colic. What a nightmare. I never realised how hard a colicky baby could be. I searched the internet for advice but it was all so non-specific. Then my father appeared with your book when our daughter was 5 weeks old and we haven't had a problem since.

I thought your book was well written, easy to read but most importantly well researched and referenced. As a doctor I found it reassuring to see the evidence laid out for me to see. I can also see how a non medic would be able to show this book to a midwife, health visitor or GP and get them to understand your theories. I think this book should be recommended at every antenatal class!

Dr Moran

Colic is such a haze of a subject and what does and doesn't help, much the same with reflux. My daughter was colicky but my son has suffered with reflux badly.Everything you could want to know about what could be the causes of your baby's tummy to be distressed is in this book, it's very easy to read and understand (read in one evening here and I am not a quick reader)

So much in this book makes sense and can help you help your babies colic/tummy troubles be relieved.I am recommending this to all mums/mums to be I just wish this book had been around when my baby was tiny!

A Huge Thank You to Christian Bates the Author for writing a book that all desperate Mum's will be so grateful for!

Mrs L, Haywards Heath

Date post:	04-Aug-2020
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