Anyone else unsure on CMPA diagnosis?

This is a long one so stick with me here 🙃 From birth my son was breastfed but I wasn’t producing enough milk which led to him dropping 12% of his birth weight at his 5 day midwife check, I was sent to see the paediatric who advised topping him up on formula until my milk came in which it never did so eventually we put him fully on formula, we tried a few different milks due to him being really uncomfortable, constipated and had bad colic, tried two different comfort milks which didn’t make a difference. He was then diagnosed with CMPA at 8 weeks, the doctor prescribed Aptamil Pepti 1 which he seemed to settle on quite well for about 3 weeks, after that he was being sick a lot again and refusing feeds, we went back to the doctors and they said he had reflux which they prescribed infant Gaviscon for. He has now been on both of these for the last 10 weeks and the sickness is still really bad if not worse then before he was diagnosed with CMPA I’m really not convinced that he has CMPA and the milk and Gaviscon is the cause of the sickness, it’s gotten so bad now he’s sick after most bottles and it’s a lot, yesterday for example I had to change him 6 times. I’ve tried to talk to the doctor about this but he just keeps advising to keep him on the milk and Gaviscon. I feel like they were really quick to diagnosis him without any real checks or tests. I want to try him back on normal milk but I’m worried about switching him over again. Has anyone else had the same sort of experience and switched their babies back to normal milk?

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I had the same experience I was on pepti 1 but my little girl still had symptoms so I asked if there was a difference milk to try and they put me on neocate and she’s been fine every since going on it. You will have to push the doctors about going on it tho as they don’t really like to give it out.

I could have written this myself.. my daughter also dropped 12% weight due to my milk not coming in, which eventually meant we had to switch fully to formula. She's had severe colic and sickness and also been prescribed gaviscon and aptamil pepti. We trialled the pepti for 3 weeks, and her sickness was sooo much worse. We also saw 0 improvement in her colic during this time. We decided to switch back to standard cow & gate, but have kept the gaviscon and are slowly seeing improvements, and slowly reducing the amount of gaviscon she has, due to her gut naturally maturing. She's now just sick once every other day or so. We also found switching to an "anti colic" faster flow teat has helped, making sure she stops feeding for a burp every 2 oz, alongside keeping her upright for at least 15 min after each feed. I'd say unless you're seeing a lot of rashes and mucus in his poo, then it's unlikely to be CMPA (but I'm not a doctor!)

Also, not sure how your lil one was delivered, but we had forceps and a health visitor has recently recommended we take her to see a cranial osteopath, as there's a link to more "difficult" births and colic/ reflux, as they're more likely to carry tension and have digestion issues. Not tried it ourselves yet, but might be worth looking in to 😊

How long have u given the gaviscon to work?

I have heard gaviscon makes things worse. I was given omeprozel and I feel that helped but I’m also giving Carobel. Did you know if your baby has a milk allergy and he’s not getting better on aptamil pepti 1 - u then need to request to go to a different milk because pepti 1 has dairy proteins in it still.

My son got moved from pepti 1 to neocate because neocate has no dairy proteins at all and he’s been a lot better

@Sophie were exactly the same! I think I’m going to switch him back, I really don’t think he has CMPA, he may have perhaps before but now grown out of it like your daughter, the doctor advised us to wean early due to his reflux so I’ve been giving him baby rice in the mornings (decided on rice due to it being diary free) this morning I gave him porridge which has diary in and so far we’ve had no reactions, so I think I’ll try him on that for the next few days and if nothing presents itself by Monday I’m going to switch him back to normal formula, we have mam bottles which are anti colic which we’ve used since birth also, see we never ever had any rashes or mucus in his poo so I don’t understand how they came to the diagnosis of CMPA, appreciate your response, fingers crossed we switch him back and there’s no more sick! X

@Zarina he’s been on the Gaviscon for 10 weeks and there’s been no improvement, I asked the doctor about switching milks and he said there was no need due to him still gaining weight, I will look into it though, thank you x

@Natalia completely agree, I’ve been looking this up online and thousands of cases of CMPA have been misdiagnosed, I think it’s the easiest diagnosis to draw it not always correct for everyone, it’s either that or like your son he’s grown out of it, thank you x

@Adele insist on a blood test to see if he’s got milk allergy or go private for the blood test but they should be changing the milk if there’s no improvement. My baby boy was on pepti 1 for less than 5 days but because he wasn’t getting better and I kept going into a&e as he wouldn’t settle - they kept him in and did blood tests then changed him over to neocate as the results was that he’s got an allergy

It may be because the cmpa milk is very thin and water, maybe change the gaviscon to a thickener, although you wait 24 hours for the gaviscon to come out of the system because using the thickener as it can cause a tummy upset. My boy was on pepti 1 and was okay for a few weeks then symptoms all came back, we then went straight to alfamino with no cows milk at all, all the other milk such as pepti 1 still have cows milk protein in just broke down more than normal milk, I’d say either switch straight to no cows milk at all, or try the thickener

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