Dear Jo-Anne,

Yes, slow growth can be linked to allergies.  It is something to consider when a baby seems to be getting an adequate amount of milk, but still isn't growing well.  My son, who had severe food allergies, was always at the bottom of the growth charts, even though I had plenty of milk and he nursed very frequently.  His stools were almost never a nice yellow, always green and frequent.   And this inspite of the fact that I myself had cut many things out of my own diet (but probably not as thoroughly as I could have - just didn't know enough about it back then).  My daughter, who has no allergies that I know of, nursed about half as much and gained so much that she was always at the top of the growth charts - fat and happy with nice yellow stools which only came once every 5 days. They both nursed for five years.  They both ended up being very tall and quite thin until puberty, anyways - now both are of average weight.  I don't think that my experience was unusual, as far as the allergies affecting rate of growth.  My allergic baby also never slept much and would be considered "high need."  I think that he was just very uncomfortable a lot of the time.


Warmly,
Sharon Knorr, BSMT, ASCP, IBCLC
Newark, NY (near Rochester on Lake Ontario)
mailto:[log in to unmask]

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html