>Does anyone have information on if mothers take in to much dairy products,
>their baby's  hair will stand straight up ????? A LC student recently asked me
>about it, saying that she observed a consult and the consultant said, she took
>one look at the baby and could tell the mother ate to much dairy products.
>I have not read anything about too much dairy products causing a baby's hair
>to stand straight up.

Rose,
I'll bet your student has been to the Lactation Institute, because that's
where I've seen and heard this! It's not in any books, and if you asked
an allergist he'd probably laugh you right out of his office, but I've
seen this first hand myself.  A pastor at my church had a 4-mo old baby
whose hair stood up; parents usually will describe how they wash it, comb
it, even gel it, but when it dries it pops right back up.  I asked mom
what she was feeding, and she was both breast and bottle feeding. Mom was
not taking in dairy, but she was using a cow's based formula. I told her
about this possible correlation and she was as skeptical as you can
guess, but she took my advice to try a soy formula. The next time I saw
her, the baby's hair was laying down and she was a believer!

I remember saying to Ellen or Chele that I thought Hispanic babies
commonly had hair sticking up--- 'cause I've seen them in the nurseries
like that so often. She said no, it isn't "normal".  I've since realized
that Hispanics as a whole tend to be dairy intolerant, and yet here they
live in American society and eat American foods, foremost of which is
lots of dairy.  Whenever I see a baby like this, the first thing I ask is
about the family history of allergies, and most especially milk.  It
isn't always milk, but quite often, and when the offending item is
removed from baby's diet or mom's diet, the hair will lay down.

-Lisa Marasco, BA, IBCLC