There is only one "food" that I discourage in a mother's diet, and that is
Nutrasweet.  So many of my clients' babies are severly bothered by
it--intestinal cramping--that I do mention it.  I'm sure that not everyone
listens but that is her choice.

Beyond that I find that a lot of babies are bothered by the ferrous sulfate
in the mother's vitamin/mineral supplement.  If she is not anemic I
recommend that she get a good multivitamin, if she wishes, without the
minerals.

I take a wait and see approach to everything else.  There is no one food
that bothers every baby and many babies are happy with whatever mother
eats.  But I do get a lot of calls about babies who are happy in the a.m.
and begin to cry in the afternoon, winding up to a great scream by bedtime.
When it is time-of-day related and baby is obviously in pain, we begin to
explore whether or not a food is bothering him. Mother doesn't eat all
night and baby is not as bothered in the morning, but by night the gas has
accumulated to an unbearable level.

It may not make scientific sense (unless the recent post about sulfer is an
issue) but mothers "know" that certain foods make their otherwise happy
babies suffer from painful gas. A mother called me this week and was
certain that each time she ate broccoli her baby suffered serious gas
pains.  I assured her that at a later date he would be able to accommodate
her eating it and that she should just wait a while.

Another mother found that orange juice set her baby off for a night of
grunting and crying.  So, there are foods that cause babies pain--at least
in the early months.  I wrote earlier that some of my clients have found
that Beano drops helps to prevent their babies' having painful gas when the
mothers eat gas-producing foods. So I suggest that sometimes.

I'll bet that someday it will be discovered that the Moms were right.  As
James McKenna said, "Science is always proving what mothers knew all along."

I'm beginning to think that the more generations away from full
breastfeeding, the more severe the allergic reactions in baby to foods a
breastfeeding mother eats. We are in the transition generation (at least, I
hope) and the mothers and babies whom we work with are paying the dietary
price for our folly.

Pat Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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