Your baby gets hiccups because their diaphragm, the thin muscle beneath the lungs that controls breathing, contracts suddenly and involuntarily. This is completely normal, especially in newborns. Babies hiccup more frequently than older children or adults because their nervous system is still maturing, and their small stomachs are easily stretched by feedings.
How the Hiccup Reflex Works
A hiccup is a reflex, meaning your baby has no control over it. It starts when something stimulates the nerves connected to the diaphragm, particularly the phrenic nerve, which runs from the neck down to the diaphragm. When that nerve fires, the diaphragm contracts sharply and the vocal cords snap shut, producing the familiar “hic” sound.
In adults, this reflex rarely activates. In babies, the nerve pathways involved are still developing, which makes the reflex trigger more easily and more often. A 2019 study from University College London found that each hiccup actually sends a signal to the brain’s cortex, producing distinct brainwaves. Researchers believe this feedback loop may help babies learn to sense and eventually control their breathing muscles. In other words, those hiccups may be serving a developmental purpose, training the brain to manage the diaphragm voluntarily.
Common Triggers During Feeding
Feeding is the most common trigger. When babies overfeed or swallow air while eating, their stomach expands and presses against the diaphragm. That physical contact irritates the muscle and sets off the hiccup reflex. This is why you’ll often notice hiccups during or right after a feeding session.
A few things make this more likely:
- Eating too fast. A strong milk letdown or a fast-flow bottle nipple can cause your baby to gulp, swallowing extra air along with milk.
- Overfeeding. A stomach filled past capacity pushes up against the diaphragm more forcefully.
- Swallowing air. A poor latch during breastfeeding or an improperly angled bottle introduces air into the stomach.
Burping your baby midway through a feeding, rather than only at the end, can help release trapped air before the stomach gets too full. If you’re bottle-feeding, tilting the bottle so milk fully fills the nipple reduces the amount of air your baby takes in. Slowing the pace of feeds, with short breaks every few minutes, also helps.
Why Newborns Hiccup So Often
Newborns can hiccup multiple times a day, and each bout typically lasts a few minutes. This frequency drops as your baby grows and their nervous system matures. By the time most children are around a year old, hiccups become much less frequent.
The high rate in newborns comes down to neurological immaturity. The reflex arc that produces hiccups involves sensory nerves, a processing center in the brainstem, and motor nerves that move the diaphragm and the muscles between the ribs. In a newborn, this entire circuit is still being fine-tuned. Signals fire more easily, and the system hasn’t yet learned to filter out minor stimuli like a slightly full stomach. As the brain builds stronger connections through repeated feedback (including, possibly, from the hiccups themselves), the threshold for triggering the reflex rises.
Hiccups Start Before Birth
If you felt rhythmic, jerking movements during pregnancy, those were likely hiccups. Babies begin hiccupping in the womb, sometimes as early as the second trimester. In utero, the diaphragm contracts the same way it will after birth, but instead of moving air, it moves amniotic fluid. These fetal hiccups produce a forceful, whole-body jerking motion that many pregnant people can feel distinctly.
Fetal hiccups are considered a sign of normal development. They indicate that the diaphragm is practicing the rhythmic contractions it will need for breathing after delivery. So by the time your baby is born, they’ve already been hiccupping for months.
What You Can (and Shouldn’t) Do
Most hiccup bouts resolve on their own within a few minutes. You don’t need to intervene. If you want to help, try offering a pacifier or letting your baby nurse briefly. The sucking motion can sometimes relax the diaphragm and interrupt the reflex. Gentle burping may also help if the hiccups started during a feed.
What you should avoid: startling your baby, pressing on their fontanelle, or holding their breath. These folk remedies for hiccups in adults have no benefit for infants and can be harmful. There’s no medication or supplement that’s appropriate for normal infant hiccups.
When Hiccups Signal Something Else
Occasional hiccups, even several times a day, are normal in a healthy baby. But hiccups combined with certain other symptoms can point to gastroesophageal reflux that’s gone beyond the typical spit-up stage. Watch for your baby arching their back during or after feeding, being unusually fussy around mealtimes, spitting up frequently and in large amounts, or gaining weight slowly.
If hiccups consistently last longer than 5 to 10 minutes, or if your baby seems genuinely uncomfortable rather than just mildly startled by them, it’s worth mentioning to your pediatrician. In the vast majority of cases, the answer will be reassurance. But persistent, uncomfortable hiccups alongside feeding difficulties can indicate that stomach acid is irritating the esophagus and triggering the diaphragm more aggressively than normal development would.