FEED THICKENER FOR INFANTS UP TO 6 MONTHS OF AGE WITH GASTROESOPHAGEAL REFLUX (REVIEW).

VOLUME 44 | NUMBER 3 | May/JUNE 2021 Gastroesophageal reflux (GER) is a normal, physiological, selflimiting event that occurs when there is an involuntary retrograde movement of gastric content into the esophagus with or without regurgitation (Kwok, Ojha, & Dorling, 2017). It is most common in infants around 4 months old, with as many as 50%–85% of infants experiencing regurgitation at least once a day (Kwok et al., 2017). adding thickener to infant feeds is a commonly used method for managing GER and regurgitation (Kwok et al., 2017). Cereal-based thickeners (rice and maize), gum-based thickeners (guar and locust bean), and carboxymethyl cellulose are the most commonly used infant feed thickeners (Kwok et al., 2017). However, variability in prescription, preparation, and presentation of feed thickening makes assessing the effectiveness of feed thickener in GER difficult to analyze (Kwok et al., 2017). FEED THICKENER FOR INFANTS UP TO 6 MONTHS OF AGE WITH GASTROESOPHAGEAL REFLUX (REVIEW)