>From:    Bruce Walker & Pauli Loeffler <[log in to unmask]>
>Since the baby seems to be thriving, a visit to a pediatric
>gastroenterologist to assure her that everything is fine couldn't hurt and
>might provide some reassurance.

Hi, Pauli,
I am being a skeptic but around here it is my experience that such a visit
wouldn't provide much reassurance.  In fact it would be far more likely to
provide the mother with the unfortunate recommendation that she place the
baby on bottles of formula thickened with rice cereal, or, if it is one of
the "supportive" GI's, bottles of thickened expressed breast milk.  <sigh>.

These are the same popular gastroenterologists (they are not all from the
same practice or hospital either) that take otherwise healthy and thriving
breastfed babies who have a few specks of blood in their stool completely
off nursing on onto a elemental or hypo- allergenic formula.  After scoping
them and finding nothing, of course.  Are other people finding so many
babies in their practice with this allergic gastroenteritis, and how is it
being managed?  I have seen other moms instructed to eliminate so much from
their diet they are only eating lamb and rice for weeks, and all along the
baby is gaining, happy and healthy, except for a few streaks of blood in
the diaper.  What's up with that?
NancyH
Nancy Holtzman RN BSN
Great Beginnings New Mothers Groups
Boston MA
mailto:[log in to unmask]