Causes of hiccups in babies

Especially babies often tend to have hiccups. Even before the baby is born, hiccups occur in the mother’s stomach. It is assumed that the cause is something natural.

The hiccups then represent a kind of “training for the lungs” because the baby cannot yet use the lungs properly in the womb. A baby often has hiccups even after birth. A possible cause for this could be too fast and greedy drinking at the breast or from the bottle, which leads to the diaphragm, or here especially the phrenic nerve, being irritated.

Another possible cause of hiccups in babies is irritation of the diaphragm due to a full and tense stomach. This occurs with too large meals or when the baby swallows too much air parallel to the food. One theory is that the subsequent hiccups should remove the air from the stomach to make room for more food.

Causes of hiccups in infants

Hiccups also occur relatively frequently in small children. However, the older the child becomes, the less frequent hiccups become, as the causes disappear. One of the causes of hiccups in infants, as in babies, is eating and drinking too quickly.

Both immediately stretch both the oesophagus and the stomach and lead to irritation of the phrenic nerve, which innervates the diaphragm. Hurried eating means that meals are not chopped up enough and infants swallow large portions of food.These large portions must then force their way through the narrowing of the esophagus at the entrance to the stomach, causing diaphragmatic irritation. At the same time, small children talk a lot during eating, so that they swallow large amounts of air parallel to food.

This extra air inflates the stomach and irritates the diaphragm. Since infants often drink carbonated beverages, this is also a cause of hiccups in infants. Tension and stress may also be a cause of hiccups in infants. The older the infant becomes and the calmer he or she becomes, among other things while eating, the less frequent the hiccups will occur.