>I am currently working with a mother of a two week old baby.  Her
>pediatrician told her the baby was lactose intolerant and she should
>stop breastfeeding and use one of the lactose free formulas.

Aaaaaarrgghh!

> Baby is
>growing like a weed, has a diaper rash and is gassy (don't remember if
>colicky gassy or just passes allot of gas).

Sounds to me like clasic lactose overload, as a result of oversupply,
ie too much breastmilk, too fast. The symptoms described are
*classic*. I would hazard a guess that this baby is producing *lots*
of wet and dirty nappies. This needs adjustment of how the mum is
breastfeeding, not weaning!

> She has a two year old son
>who cannot drink milk, mom drinks lots of milk.  We discussed modifying
>her diet.

Good clue. Food intolerance can exacerbate lactose overload and even
cause secondary lactose intolerance. The fact that baby is growing so
well indicates that the food intolerance problem is not severe (or
you would expect less or no weight gain), so it looks more likely to
be overload. But modifying the diet may well help as well here, so I
would agree with you about this.

> She asked if you could put Lact-Aid into breastmilk?  I don't
>know, do  any of you?

Yes, you can, but it needs to be put into expressed milk and left,
say, overnight to digest the lactose. Far easier to modify the
breastfeeding to reduce the throughput of breastmilk in the baby - in
a nushell, finish the first breast first; or one-breast per feed; if
this not enough, feed on one breast several times in a row or for a
set number of hours, before switching to the other. Watch unused
breast for blockages.

I have written an article on lactose intolerance and the breastfed
baby that is available on the web, on the NMAA website
http://nmaa.asn.au This includes a section on lactose overload, how
it happens and the rationale of how to resolve it, as this is so
commonly confused with lactose intolerance. Please feel free to share
the info in my article with mothers.
******************************************************************
Joy Anderson B.Sc. Dip.Ed. Grad.Dip.Med.Tech. IBCLC
Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia Breastfeeding Counsellor
Perth, Western Australia.   mailto:[log in to unmask]
******************************************************************

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