On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, you wrote:

> I would appreciate any information about the following situation:  A 31/2
> month- old exclusively breastfed baby started having about 5 cc mostly fresh
> blood in its stool on June 30.  Saw a GI specialist today and was told to
> wean to a hypo-allergenic formula because the baby has developed an allergy
> to something in the mother's milk.

Gosh, every one knows Mother Milk is the first culprit when Baby develops
something. Of course, the allergen is in Mom's milk, it cannot be
anything else. I know this is unscientific, but I am sooo unhappy since
somebody has discovered that about 1% of everything the mother
takes passes in the breastmilk: since the mother's milk is allergenic
(i.e. "bad"), then let's sell some formula. Folks, let's remember that
the jury is still out there about the allergenecity of breastmilk:
studies have inconsistent methodology, with inconsistent results. For
one, I always treat the "allergen in Mother's Milk" question as a remote
possibility, a last resort issue... In this day and age, mothers are so
easily convinced that their milk is the problem, I try not to feed into
thes stream...

Louise Denhez, M.D., M.P.H
Montreal, Quebec, Canada