I have permission from the mother to post this to Lactnet
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated
Thanks Marie Davis, RN, IBCLC
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 Subject: heard of this?

 Ok, as is typical for way too many docs, my children's (soon to be changed to
a different one) pediatrician is blaming it on breastfeeding...
 My daughter is now 4 months old, she has gotten nothing but breastmilk, ever.
After she was born, we learned that she is a cold baby and likes to be very
warm, when she is sleeping, she has to be bundled up like it is the middle of
an arctic winter.  Well, this makes her sweat.  Not a big problem.
 Not long after she was born, I noticed that she has this particular odor
about her.  I assumed that it was stale urine, but after some experiments on
my part, I have determined that it is not urine.  It is not breastmilk in the
folds of her skin either.  As near as I can tell, it is her perspiration. DH
thinks that it smells kind of like (but not exactly like) sour breastmilk, I
think it smells like vinegar.  Anyway, it really is strong and stinks.  I have
been having to give her a bath every day (and it is almost against my religion
to dry out a baby's skin by bathing them with soap every day, but it is the
only way to get rid of the smell).  I have had to change my sheets every few
days.  I have tried putting a cotton blanket under her to help her not sweat
so much, but the sweat still stinks to the high heavens.
 In addition, her stool absolutely stinks, and her gas (of which she has in
abundance) is enough to clear out a room (seriously!).  I know that some
babies just have stinky poop, but this really really stinks, enough to make my
eyes water, and this is every time she poops!  The poop is normal in
appearance, for what I believe a 4 month old breastfed baby should
produce--rather loose, light tan, and infrequent, easily passed.
 She is also very crabby, and cries almost all the time she is not asleep, I
have tried everything short of ferberizing her, to make her feel better, and
nothing works.  I am about to go nuts, and DH is dreading coming home.  My son
tells me "M is crying, again" in a sad voice that sounds like (I am telling
you this, knowing that there is nothing that you can do about it, but there is
the information).
 The pediatrician tells me that he has smelled this on breastfed babies.  His
attitude is that it is a product of breastfeeding.  I asked my LLLL and she
has never heard of this in a breastfed baby.  I trust her more than I do the
doctor.  She is checking things out.  There is no family history of metabolic
disorders in our families.
 Have any of you smelled anything like this in your children, or heard of
something like this?  Please respond off the list so I can get is quickly.  I
am pretty worried about this, and will probably take my LLLL's suggestion of
taking her to Children's Hospital and having an endocrinologist take a look at
her.  I know of a way that I can do that and have help in paying for it, but
if it really is something that is common amongst breastfed babies, then I
won't bother to have her subjected to all of that.
 We saw the doc again today, for another problem, but we did discuss my
daughter for a few minutes.  He has given her a prescription for Zantac.  He
believes that it is reflux, and that we should give the Zantac a try for 2
weeks.  It is a rather large dose, but I am about at my wit's end over the
crying.  She has gotten increasingly fussy lately, and with everything else
that
I am dealing with, my life is getting very difficult.  I have given her
tylenol
and such, it does not help at all.  I know that she is at the age of teething
and all of that, but the fussing just does not seem to be teething type
fussing,
just my gut instinct says that it is different.  The pediatrician talked about
babies of this age becoming more aware that they are separate entities from
their mother, and that might be a part of it.
I posted this to 3 lists that I am on and got back a surprising number of
responses from moms saying that their kids smell(ed) "vinegary".  BUT, almost
all of them also said that their kids stool did not start to stink until the
introduction of solids, and that their babies were relatively happy babies.
My
son did not stink like this, and his stool did not stink either.  My diet is
the
same, and I have already eliminated almost all dairy from my diet.  I am
loathe
to eliminate wheat or eggs, which comprise a large part of my diet.  My son
did
not have reflux, actually, he only rarely spit up at all.  The other symptoms
of
reflux that I am familiar with, gagging, spitting up, bad breath, and the like
are not present in my daughter.  She did have what I believed to be very mild
reflux in her first months, and I had a prescription for Pepcid for a while,
but
did not notice this to help her, and quit using it.
I would appreciate anything that you can learn on this.  The advice seems to
be
evenly divided, some telling me to not worry about it and then the rest
telling
me that I should get her down to an endocrinologist ASAP.