Brenda, I know *very* little about this and can't really tell whether it is a
comparable situation, BUT -- a mother I worked with recently described to me
the odyssey she went through with her older child, who stopped thriving in
the middle of his first year, also before introduction of solids.   After
more than six months of watching her child literally wasting away -- tests
for CF, for every enzyme deficiency in the book, for all kinds of allergic
weirdness, etc -- it was discovered that he had GIARDIA -- they had
discounted the possibility of a parasite because he was not on anything but
his mother's milk but it turned out that one one weekend visit to friends,
quite a while earlier, the mom had BATHED in water that turned out to be
contaminated -- they figure he must have picked it up literally off the skin
of her breast.

I don't know whether your nephews symptoms are consistent with intestinal
parasites -- I just don't know enough about it -- but her point to me was
that even babies who theoretically couldn't have been exposed to some of
these germs actually can be and sometimes are exposed, and the culprit for
their failure to thrive may not really be in a defect in the child's immune
system but a bug.

Something to keep in mind, anyway.

I hope he does better soon -- very warm wishes -- Elisheva in NYC

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