Introduction to vomiting:

It tugs at our hearts to hear our children retch, to watch them vomit, and to feel helpless to make it go away. Vomiting is intense. It grabs our attention, and it’s intended to! Vomiting is a signal that something going on in the body needs to be addressed.

What is vomiting?

Your child’s body has a relatively small number of symptoms with which to respond to an ever-changing, wide variety of invaders and irritants. Sneezing ejects the intruders from the nose, coughing from the lungs and throat, diarrhea from the intestines, and vomiting from the stomach.

Vomiting is a forceful action accomplished by a fierce downward contraction of the diaphragm along with a sudden tightening of the abdominal muscles against a relaxed upper stomach with an open sphincter, propelling the contents up and out.

Vomiting is a complex, coordinated, automatic reflex. An increase in saliva production may occur just before vomiting. Retching signals the beginning of the vomiting event.

Vomiting is orchestrated by the vomiting center of the brain. It responds to signals coming from the gastrointestinal tract (the mouth, stomach, and intestines), the bloodstream (and medicines or infections it contains), from the balancing systems in the ear (think motion sickness), and from the brain itself (including unsettling sights, smells, or even thoughts).

An amazing variety of stimuli can trigger vomiting, from migraines to kidney stones.

Who gets vomiting?

Vomiting is extremely common. Almost all children will vomit several times during their childhood. The most common situation is a child with a viral gastrointestinal infection, such as rotavirus.

Infections elsewhere in the body can also cause vomiting. Other classic situations are kids with pneumonia, ear infections, urinary tract infections, hepatitis, meningitis, or appendicitis.

Children with inborn errors of metabolism, such as PKU or galactosemia, will start vomiting at an early age.

Children with obstructions in the gastrointestinal tract often vomit. An obstruction could occur almost anywhere along the tract, but a common one in babies is pyloric stenosis.

Children with food poisoning, perhaps from E coli, staphylococcus, or Norwalk virus, are another important group who vomit.

Children with brain tumors, hydrocephalus, or other causes of increased pressure in the skull will vomit. Any child with headaches that awaken him from sleep and early morning vomiting should be evaluated.

What are the symptoms of vomiting?

Vomiting itself is the symptom.