Macha’s Reflux
Macha began showing symptoms of reflux not long after her birth. I immediately quit eating dairy and tomatoes, the dairy because I knew it was the most common food for babies to react to, the tomatoes because my son Ricky reacted to those as a baby. After a few weeks, I tested by first eating dairy and a week later tomatoes, and she was definitely reacting to both.
However, her reflux symptoms did not completely go away. As I began to consider eliminating more foods, I read more about foremilk imbalance, or overactive letdown (OAL). I hadn't considered that this could be her problem, even though she had the symptoms, because I already kept her on one side for the entire feeding. But then I learned that sometimes only switching every feeding can be still be too frequent for some babies, so I began to nurse her on only one side for more feedings.
I was amazed at how quickly Macha's reflux symptoms cleared up. I nursed her frequently (for at least 20 minutes every 1-2 hours) on only one side per 5-6 hour period. At first I pumped the other side before switching, to relieve some of the engorgement and so she would start out on that side with hindmilk, but after a while my milk supply evened out and this was no longer necessary. I often wonder how much OAL contributed to my sons' reflux and how much improvement I could have seen with them if I had realized that OAL could be the problem!