>Mom wrote to me, somewhat at the end of her rope, and not sure where to turn
>next... She is motivated to continue nursing, has good supply, but is
>worried that her own dietary intake is causing more harm to baby, than would
>starting her on n*******gen.  Here are some specifics from her, and I'm
>hoping someone can give some further direction.  Mom is quite savvy,
>medically speaking, and very assertive, but is naturally concerned about her
>child.
>
>Baby is 4 months old, and has a history of allergic reactions after nursing.
>Mom is working full time, and pumps EBM for the girl.  Mom has history of
>allergies and asthma in her family, and is committed to nursing since she
>knows it makes a difference.
>
>Here are some specifics from her post:
>
>"We had so many food intolerance issues, which I thought I had finally
>worked out over the time period 3 - 8 weeks. She's definitely
>sensitive to any dairy, nuts, peanuts, or gluten (wheat, oats, etc) in
>my diet, though I thought I could get away with trace amounts of dairy
>or wheat (like what cheese I missed when picking cheese out of salads,
>or less than 1% ingredients in salad dressings, etc). When I eat
>something she's sensitive to, she'll be very fussy, cry and reject the
>breast (and sometimes bottle, also), sometimes vomit or spit up (all
>these in the first 24 hours), and have green gassy mucusy diarrhea for a
>week.
>
>She's also had 2 nasty 1 month long colds, I think, largely courtesy of
>her sister. Whenever she gets a cold, she also gets the green mucusy
>diarrhea.
>
>So the past month had a very bad start. She got a nasty cold from
>K****, the diarrhea started. She started sulfatrim on her 3mo birthday
>(for a sinus infection, she had fever, coughing, and thick yellow
>mucus and her sister and I both had definite sinus infections at the
>time too), the diarrhea continued. She went on a huge food strike ---
>rejecting breast and bottle, even in the dead of night, to the point
>where her diapers were dry. I managed to coax occasional bm/ebm into
>her, and eventually (after an urgent care visit and a children's er
>visit) the consensus was that the sulfatrim was making her so nauseous
>she wouldn't eat. Switched her to amoxicillin. She seemed to get
>better, but the diarrhea continued. As of her 4mo visit, she still had
>the diarrhea, but seemed happy and well. I was concerned, though,
>because from 3mo to 4mo she gained no weight at all --- went from 13
>lbs 7 oz clothed to 13 lbs 4oz unclothed. During the worst of the food
>strike, she was 13 lbs 4 oz clothed.
>
>So this weekend, she seemed to have another big allergic reaction to
>something I must have eaten. She was fussy and rejecting breast and
>bottle, spit a little, and the diarrhea got much worse (waking her
>crying in the middle of the night, where usually she is poop-free
>through the night).
>
>So now she's had diarrhea, with an occasional day of improvement just
>to return to that awful green, mucusy, foaming, liquid stuff --- for
>five weeks. She's not gaining weight, and she seems traumatized by the
>idea of nursing, sometimes she seems to hate it."
>
>Mom has kept good records of her own intake, in order to discern foods that
>might be causing a problem, but is naturally discouraged, and not sure where
>to turn next.
>
>Any ideas?  I know that overall, breastfeeding this child, in particular, is
>the most beneficial.  Someone else suggested that she consider full time
>pumping, and bottlefeeding EBM, but I don't know that the mom wants to
>completely give up the physical nursing relationship.


        I have an extremly allergic child also, who showed symptoms within days of
birth.  He was totally breastfed, as the fourth child of a long time LLLL
and IBCLC.  I tried many elimination diets, but was unable to make any
headway.  Finally I consulted an allergist.  He did allergy skin testing,
much to my surprise, but finally, I had somewhere to start that made sense!
 I removed dairy, eggs,(even in baked goods), peanuts, and soy (soy
letchicin was ok) from my diet.  Symptoms cleared, but even the slightest
slips brought them back.  As Alex grew older and started solids (at 15
months) more allergies showed up and I removed beef, chicken, poppy seeds,
fish, shellfish and barley from my diet.
        As he got even older I was able to start adding back thing, soy being the
first he outrgrew.
        It may seem hard to live like this but it really isn't.  Fot one thing, it
is temporary.  Even if the child nurses five years, this is a short time in
your life.  Plus, there are lots of substitutes out there.  No beef or
chicken?  You can eat pork and turkey.  There are many ways to bake without
eggs, from substitutes you can buy, to those made with vinagar, water and
baking powder.  There are catalogs full of rice flour products.  The Food
Allergy Network has tons of this information.  There web addy is
www.foodallergy.org
        I have since refered many moms to this pediatric allergist.  He tests kids
as young as 4 months.  He has saved many breastfeeding relationships by
giving the moms something concrete to work with.  When moms keep trying one
diet after another they often get discouraged.  I don't like invasive
proceedures, but the nurses were so professional and well trained, Alex did
not really know what happened until towards the end of the proceedure.
They laid him accross my lap, and one nurse got down on the floor to
entertain him!
        Alex is 6 years old now.  He still has many life threatening allergies.
However, he is incredibly healthy in every other way...very rarely catches
anything, and no asthma...almost unheard of in a child as allergic as he is.
        I credit breastfeeding with two things-saving his life in the neonatal
period, as I truly feel he might have been a neonatal death if he had
recieved formula, and making him such a healthy (not to mention intelligent
;-)  ) child now.
        Good Luck
Patty Spanjer
IBCLC


             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html