Dear Friends: Last night I saw an eight-week old beautiful baby boy. His mother brought him to me because he is always fussy. He would, if he could, breastfeed "alll the time". He frequently vomits after feeds, and often spits up. He has had skin problems almost since birth: first acne, then eczema, and now thick crusty patches over the entire top of his head. His stools look like blue-green algae! His mother has decided not to nurse him so often. If she can stretch out the feeding interval for 4-5 hours, he is more comfortable. She saw this as relieving their (his and her) misery. I questioned this as a long-term solution! Fortunately, this boy is obviously thriving (has the Michelin Man look to his legs and several chins) so that is not of concern.....yet. I did some craniosacal therapy on his mother, and on him. I suggested she postpone the immunizations until his misery is relieved. (Can you believe that the accepted practice now is to give a 2 month-old baby FOUR intramuscular injections at one visit? Hep B, HiB, DPT and Polio? It shocked me.) She does not drink cow's milk, nor eat meat. In view of his apparent insatiability at breast (which is always a red flag for food intolerance: see Ducharme et al. "Apparent Insatiability: An Unrecognized Manifestation of Food Intolerance in Breast-Fed Infants" Pediatrics 1994 pp. 1006-1008), and the fact that her major protein source is soy (soy milk, soy burgers, soy cheese every day) I suggested she eliminate soy from her diet. The mechanism for the insatiability is that the baby ingests milk that makes his tummy hurt so he wants to nurse more for comfort so he gets more milk that makes him upset so he wants to nurse more. It is a vicious cycle. For how long should soy be eliminated to rule it out as a source of this baby's discomfort? Nikki Lee RN, MSN, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CIMI craniosacral therapy practitioner; childbirth educator Elkins Park (a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; northeastern USA) supporting the WHO Code and the Mother Friendly Childbirth Initiative *********************************************** 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