Barb wrote:

"How rare are these allergies we are talking about?  Dairy I see fairly
frequently, but peanuts, shell fish, and citrus, is there any protein in
citrus?"


When I worked in hopsital, our client base was about 80% Latina, and of those
moms, most were Puerto Rican. I saw allergies to oranges at least as often as
to cow milk among these moms. I surmised that it was b/c, having more than
the usual frequency of obvious cow milk allergy themselves, they relied on
calcium-fortified orange juice to replace the calcium mothers are convinced
they only get from cow milk. Hence, lots of citrus allergy. And I really do
mean a lot.


In my practice, I see food allergy very, very often. I think we see more kids
w/ allergy than we want to admit, so we decide that so much crying must be
normal. I don't think it is. But, allergy can be hard to detect and since we
don't see bf'ing as just something you do, no matter what, in our culture, we
tend to try to minimize any possible difficulties. But, just look at the
diets of the avg pregnant and lactating women (lots of processed foods,
heavily laden with sugars and refined carbs, trans-fats, tons of cow milk,
corn, soy, additives, pesticides, hormones, artificial everything and often
very limited in variety--very few living foods or healthy fats) and it is no
wonder so many babies have allergies. I had one client recently who cut out
cow milk and eggs and saw some rapid improvement, but still she felt there
was something else bothering the baby. She took the baby to a chiropractor
for muscle-testing and discovered that the baby was also allergic to chicken.
How much elimination dieting would it have taken to figure that out? Would
another LC have just taught her how to manage the crying?


"I have read many articles about colick and the normal neurological
changes/behavior patterns in newborns the first four months of life.   Are we
just desperately trying to help desperate mothers with normal colicky/fussy
babies? "


I am sorry, but "normal colicky/fussy" is an oxymoron in my opinion.


"Should we be mothering the mother instead of having them try all of these
strict diets?  At what point do we say enough is enough? "


When we have solved the problem.


" At what point can we say this must be an allergy and we must try a special
diet.   I have had mother's eliminate dairy and even soy.  But to go to only
rice, squash and turkey???????????"


Well, as you can tell I am not a fan of such drastic elimination.


"Isn't that a lot to ask?  And if the doctor tells her to go on formula,
can't she just say no? "


What totally distressed first-time mom is going to say no if it appears to
her that her milk is in some way harming her baby?


" How bad are these babies really?  Are they physically compromised or is it
more of a difficult situation for the parents to put up with the
crying???????? "


IMO, both.


"  Which is difficult.  I have read that anything buy soy and dairy allergies
are very rare, yet now I read on lactnet that 11 foods can be culprits."


I missed the 11 foods, but really any food can be a culprit.


"  Are there reliable statistics on their proven occurances.  I have mothers
who are so paranoid about their diet. "


Yes, but usually paranoid for no reason. The mothers whose babies have
allergies are never the ones I meet who are restricting their diets--it is
the moms who have heard the misinformation about foods like garlic. If only
all mothers were paranoid about cow milk, things would be much simpler.


"Our goal is to make nursing something that can fit easily into a person's
life so she can breastfeed for one or two years.  How can she do that if she
lives on millet?"


Well, that is not really my goal. For one thing, one to two years is too
short. For another, bf'ing should just be what we do, no matter what else we
have to do. I am not going to oversimplify it in the hopes that mothers will
bf longer. IMO, mothers who bf longer tend to be the ones willing to solve
problems, anyway.


I am currently working with a mom whose baby responded somewhat to removel of
cow milk from the diet (very fussy babe), but I was sure there were other
issues and so was she. She saw a chiropractor, with some improvement in latch
(which had been very poor) and then a homeopath b/c the baby was so fussy and
not pooping. She has finally seen a PT and learned that there was some
significant trauma to the baby's cranial nerves at birth--numbers 9 and
10--those that govern suck and swallow and digestion. Finally an answer and
treatment plan. I feel as if I would have been undermining her intuition if I
had not helped her continue to search for solutions and I cannot even imagine
the long-term consequences of convincing her she simply has a "high-need"
baby and rattling off soothing techniques. We live in a culture where we
undernourish babies in utero and brutalize them at birth. Then we hurry to
push them away as fast as possible, so they can be "independent". How can we
expect them to suffer no consequences?

Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA

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