I had a mom in my LLL group who had 3 sons, each one born with successively
worse adverse reactions to food stuffs ( wheat, eggs etc as well as any dyes
or additives) This mom stood firm in her committment to bf, even though by her
last child her diet consisted mainly of chicken, rice and a few vegetables.
Her children suffered when exposed to offending foods with severe exzema,
digestive and respiratory problems. In the final days of her nursing
relationship, she was on weekly weights, she was so starved for calories. As
her children grew old enough to be sustained on solids (for some reason, tofu
was ok!), only then did she wean. Yes this was an extreme case, but I myself
witnessed one son's severe reaction at a child's birthday party when he
sneaked off and ate all the choclate candy off the cake! I really admired this
mother at the time for sticking with it. It would seem that some babies do
react strongly to even the tiny amounts of offending stuff in their mom's
milk. Often, and strangely enough, it is the mother who figures it out first.
Susan Wittner, RN, LLL