Mom wrote to me, somewhat at the end of her rope, and not sure where to turn next... She is motivated to continue nursing, has good supply, but is worried that her own dietary intake is causing more harm to baby, than would starting her on n*******gen. Here are some specifics from her, and I'm hoping someone can give some further direction. Mom is quite savvy, medically speaking, and very assertive, but is naturally concerned about her child. Baby is 4 months old, and has a history of allergic reactions after nursing. Mom is working full time, and pumps EBM for the girl. Mom has history of allergies and asthma in her family, and is committed to nursing since she knows it makes a difference. Here are some specifics from her post: "We had so many food intolerance issues, which I thought I had finally worked out over the time period 3 - 8 weeks. She's definitely sensitive to any dairy, nuts, peanuts, or gluten (wheat, oats, etc) in my diet, though I thought I could get away with trace amounts of dairy or wheat (like what cheese I missed when picking cheese out of salads, or less than 1% ingredients in salad dressings, etc). When I eat something she's sensitive to, she'll be very fussy, cry and reject the breast (and sometimes bottle, also), sometimes vomit or spit up (all these in the first 24 hours), and have green gassy mucusy diarrhea for a week. She's also had 2 nasty 1 month long colds, I think, largely courtesy of her sister. Whenever she gets a cold, she also gets the green mucusy diarrhea. So the past month had a very bad start. She got a nasty cold from K****, the diarrhea started. She started sulfatrim on her 3mo birthday (for a sinus infection, she had fever, coughing, and thick yellow mucus and her sister and I both had definite sinus infections at the time too), the diarrhea continued. She went on a huge food strike --- rejecting breast and bottle, even in the dead of night, to the point where her diapers were dry. I managed to coax occasional bm/ebm into her, and eventually (after an urgent care visit and a children's er visit) the consensus was that the sulfatrim was making her so nauseous she wouldn't eat. Switched her to amoxicillin. She seemed to get better, but the diarrhea continued. As of her 4mo visit, she still had the diarrhea, but seemed happy and well. I was concerned, though, because from 3mo to 4mo she gained no weight at all --- went from 13 lbs 7 oz clothed to 13 lbs 4oz unclothed. During the worst of the food strike, she was 13 lbs 4 oz clothed. So this weekend, she seemed to have another big allergic reaction to something I must have eaten. She was fussy and rejecting breast and bottle, spit a little, and the diarrhea got much worse (waking her crying in the middle of the night, where usually she is poop-free through the night). So now she's had diarrhea, with an occasional day of improvement just to return to that awful green, mucusy, foaming, liquid stuff --- for five weeks. She's not gaining weight, and she seems traumatized by the idea of nursing, sometimes she seems to hate it." Mom has kept good records of her own intake, in order to discern foods that might be causing a problem, but is naturally discouraged, and not sure where to turn next. Any ideas? I know that overall, breastfeeding this child, in particular, is the most beneficial. Someone else suggested that she consider full time pumping, and bottlefeeding EBM, but I don't know that the mom wants to completely give up the physical nursing relationship. As mom told me, "Any information or advice would be welcome, I have no emotional distance left to really put things into proper perspective." Thanks, Trish Kuper, proud mama of Claire & Cecelia, and member of an internationally recognized breastfeeding support organization [log in to unmask] Untaught, yet wise! mid all thy brief alarms Thou closely clingest to thy Mother's arms, Nestling thy little face in that fond breast, Whose anxious Heavings lull thee to thy rest! -Samuel Taylor Coleridge. To an Infant *********************************************** 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