answers

it was nice for all 3 of us to come home today! ellie had a couple tests done yesterday and today. the barium swallow showed normal physical structure, but did show that she has esophageal reflux. the swallow study done today by the speech pathologist showed that ellie has a super strong suck but also immature in that she takes in quite a bit of air and doesn't take enough breaks for breathing, which adds to the reflux problem. the speech pathologist gave us some guidelines for feeding ellie now on her side to slow down her sucking and improve her swallowing. ellie doesn't seem to mind it which is good. we also have to keep her upright for her feedings and 30 minutes afterwards. we put her bassinet up on blocks so that she will sleep on an incline. the MD prescribed zantac to help with her reflux and said to give maalox and tylenol as needed for pain if we see she's having a lot of pain with feedings. the MD will follow up with ellie on monday and said most likely this is what her problem has been. ellie has done well with the new feeding position and hasn't had any vomiting incidents since last night.
i know it probably sounds silly to some that we spent 3 days in the hospital to get a diagnosis of reflux but we don't regret taking her in at all. with her starting out having lost 10% of her body weight and with the 3 days of feeding problems we needed to get help quickly. doing outpatient office visits would have taken a lot longer to diagnose and they wouldn't have been as thorough. so we're grateful for the peace of mind going to the hospital brought.