Altitude sickness in babies

Hi all I hope you all are having a great labor day weekend. We had a blast, Aiden went camping for his first time (I'll put of pictures once I get them). He even went on a zip line!!!! We went up to Pikes Peak which is about a 14,000 feet above sea level. I have never been on a mountain that big before! The drive up the mountain was really scary with the drop offs and the no guardrail. But what really got me worried is that Aiden started to act kinda funny once we got up there....

Because he has been teething a lot over the last week or two, we never really thought much about him spitting up. But when he woke up on Saturday morning after being there all night he vomited really bad. That's when someone told me about altitude sickness. Not many people know about it, I didn't know. But when you get up to a high elevation the presser up there can be really hard on the body.

Here are some signs to look out for:

• Difficulty sleeping
• Dizziness or light-headedness
• Fatigue
• Headache
• Loss of appetite
• Nausea or vomiting
• Rapid pulse (heart rate)
• Shortness of breath with exertion

Symptoms generally associated with more severe acute mountain sickness include:

• Bluish discoloration of the skin (cyanosis)
• Chest tightness or congestion
• Confusion
• Cough
• Coughing up blood
• Decreased consciousness or withdrawal from social interaction
• Gray or pale complexion
• Inability to walk in a straight line, or to walk at all
• Shortness of breath at rest

Now Aiden had been doing really well at night not need to nurse all the time but, that night that was all he wanted to do. We could also tell he was having a little harder time breathing. 

But we still did not think much of it until mid morning when I went to go nurse him he vomited again. A lot, he even was gagging on it, I had to flip him over and help pat his back to get it all out. That really scared me, so we decided that after dinner we could head down the mountain. 

At that point Aiden then took a good long nap, woke up and vomited all over me. (sigh it was a long day) So we packed up and left. I felt a little sick to but nothing like that. So we got home, he was happy, we bathed him to get the camp fire smoke out and I laid down with him to nurse him to sleep. And right away I could tell something was not right. He would not latch on for more then a few seconds and he kept giving me that sad puppy dog look. Then he vomited again (that's 4 times now if you where counting). We got up striped the bed and had Ryan call the ER, just to make sure this was not a bigger problem. 

They told us that as long as the vomit was not pink, he was not running a fever, then he should be fine. He just needed to sleep it off at that point. So after about an hour of worry if he was going to vomit again, he fell asleep slept the whole night and woke up today feeling much better.

I really wanted to share this with you because this was something I did not know could happen. And as a mom now that I know I want to make sure you know. So if you are planing on going camping in a high elevation where your baby is not used to it, take your time getting up there. Maybe even go up the day before and sleep at a hotel half way up to see how they do. And if they start to show signs that they are not feeling well then get them off the mountain. But take a slow drive down it will be better on them.