With mother's permission, I'm asking for input from anyone with
experience that can help this family. The child is 15 months old, and
mother has been following a hypoallergenic diet since he very early on
showed symptoms of allergy to many foods.
At 6 weeks, he spit up and seemed to choke on what he spit up, to the
point of not being able to breathe, so she stopped dairy, and he
improved. He had colic-like symptoms (screaming bouts) from 2 months,
had bloody stools from 3 months and was diagnosed with allergies at 4
months.
The screaming and the blood in stools resolved completely by 6 months
when mother stopped eating any of the allergens. It took that long to
identify them all. She has not tried to challenge him by going off the
diet since then.
He has eczema and at night, the only thing that really soothes him is
breastfeeding. He has been given cetirizine once a day when needed for
the itching from the eczema. The only beverages he has had are
breastmilk and water, does not eat sweets and has on rare occasions
tasted food containing any sugar, and his teeth have been
brushed scrupulously since the first tooth appeared.
Official Norwegian recommendation for night breastfeeding is to limit
child to two feeds at night from when teeth appear, and to brush them
after each feed. I've never heard of anyone who follows this advice at
all and most toddlers who are still breastfeeding have healthy teeth.
Parents contacted dental hygienist when they saw suspicious-looking
spots on his teeth, which turned out to be decay. The hygienist was
convinced it was the night feeds that caused it. In the course of just
a couple of weeks they have progressed visibly. Mother has been
advised by the nutritionist on his treatment team to continue
breastfeeding, also night feeds, as her milk is one of the few foods
he can tolerate. Various pediatricians have advised her to cease all
night feeds or to carry on with them, none of them agree. The dentist
she was referred to afterwards has admitted that the
condition of his teeth can not be blamed on breastfeeding alone, but
has no idea what the cause is. He has not seen a pediatric dentist,
and the regional dental referral center has recommended he be examined
at a pediatrics center to find the cause of his caries as they feel
there must be some underlying, non-dental hygiene related, origin. His
newly erupted molars are also affected.
Mother has brought to the attention of all the health care providers
she has come in contact with, the fact that the child's breath 'smells
like vinegar' and had been brushed off in every case, because they
feel it is not relevant to anything at all. This week they finally did a 24
hour pH measurement which was negative for reflux.
Please post if you have any suggestions for this family or just some
supportive words if you have experienced anything along these lines.
The mother is
a mother-to-mother breastfeeding counsellor and a friend of mine, but
lives far from me and I haven't seen the boy personally except on
Skype :-) She feels she is in quite a bind because he needs her milk,
and at the same time she is being made to feel she is damaging his
teeth.
Hope to hear from lots of you :-)
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
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