I wonder if anyone can offer some advice or point me in the right direction
for research please?  I have looked in the archives but have been unable to
find any information relevant to the mum I am supporting.

The mum in question has a little boy, aged 3½ years, still breastfeeding.
Mum is 27 weeks pregnant and doesn't wish to wean.  Toddler has recently
been having severe upper and lower GI symptoms and has now been admitted to
hospital for observation.  Suggestions have been made that he has coeliac
disease and intestinal biopsy is possible.

He has been placed on a gluten-free diet as a precaution, but Mum has asked
if I can advise her on whether she should exclude gluten from her diet
until such time as coeliac disease is either confirmed or eliminated.
While she is willing to do this if necessary, I can find nothing to support
this being of help.  From the information I have been able to find,
everything supports ongoing breastfeeding to *protect* against coeliac
disease, and one study quoted in Lawrence suggests that "the transfer of
gliadin from mother to infant might be critical for the development of an
appropriate specific immune response".

This child was exclusively breastfed from birth and solids were introduced
not earlier than six months, and family are vegetarian. I have no
experience of coeliac disease in a breastfed child and while I am aware
that eliminating dairy products can help babies with colic and eczema, I am
not so sure about eliminating gluten from the diet of a breastfeeding mum
in the instance of confirmed (or even suspected) coeliac disease.

All comments appreciated.

Sincerely,

Sue Lunn
ABM BFC, Somerset, UK

             ***********************************************
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