Baby acid reflux is a condition that doctors have not yet completely researched and that is often a little misunderstood as well. From recent statistics, one fifth or so of the eight million babies born each year in the US suffer from acid reflux, and babies with handicaps that are developmental or neurological are even more at risk from this condition.

In simple, physical terms, acid reflux is a problem in the digestive system, which can be corrected. In a healthy person, the lower esophageal sphincter (the name for the circular muscle acting as a valve at the junction of the stomach and the esophagus) stops stomach acid from flowing back up the esophagus. Acid reflux happens when that sphincter cannot maintain the acids in the stomach so that acids move into the throat sometimes attaining the larynx. Numerous symptoms can result from acid reflux leading to complications like pain, infections, ulcers, problems in eating, voice disorders and even cancer in the long run.

Baby acid reflux can be particularly difficult to diagnose and treat. Because an infant cannot give verbal expression to his or her feelings, it is difficult to determine if he or she is suffering from a medical problem. In addition, reflux condition is easy to confuse with usual vomiting in babies. For the first 3 to 4 months of an infant's life, frequent vomiting happens in half of all cases, with a peak at 4 months. Vomiting is both painful and distressing when caused by acid reflux.

The best solution for the right diagnosis of infant gastroesophageal reflux disease is to have a specialist diagnosis performed by an ENT (ear, nose, throat) doctor or a gastroenterologist. To correctly diagnose infant GERD, several further symptoms need to be identified. Besides sporadic vomiting, these symptoms include: infections of the middle ear, enlargement of the adenoids, abdominal pains, asthma, crying non-stop, anemia, waking in the night without reason, vomiting of blood (hematemesis), continual coughing, a high-pitched sound when breathing, repeated croup, reluctance to feeding and inflammation of the nose and the sinus.

Possibilities for remedies to gastro esophageal reflux disease can be: medicaments, surgery and holistic programs. However, even for adult acid reflux patients, surgery is rarely an option in normal situations. For baby acid reflux, neither medicaments not surgery are optimal answers. Medicaments may be sub-optimal in particular for Babies for any of the three reasons below:

1. Medicaments for GERD treat merely the symptoms but do not fix the deeper cause of the condition.

2. Medicaments for acid reflux can cause multiple secondary effects that are difficult to identify in infants.

3. Medicaments can cause multiple secondary effects that are present but hidden in babies.

The best solution to baby acid reflux is a holistic one while focusing on a global set of changes in lifestyle and diet. Strong support is given to this concept by recent research. One such research for example demonstrated that moving to soy-based formula from cow's milk based formula gave a 40% recovery rate in infants. Other research showed acid reflux symptoms being aggravated when infants received juice products. Modifying feeding and sleeping position was also seen to be of benefit in treating infant acid reflux.