Allergic reaction to Aptamil creamy baby porridge

[OhWhatAPalaver]

DD is 5.5mo and have just started weaning her. she has had mashed banana with a bit of breast milk squeezed on to it for about a week and loves it, i thought i'd try her with a baby porridge and someone recommended the Aptamil ones, i thought i try the plain one first. She ate it no problem but started to cough a bit about half way through so i stopped feeding it to her. she then immediately came out in a red rash all over her face with whitish bumps, kind of like hives. she kept coughing and then she started wretching and vomiting trying to get it out of her system so we rushed her straight to the emergency docs who gave her piriton.

after a couple of hours the rash had almost gone and she had been sick a few times and BFed quite a lot. it was a very stressful evening to say the least!

i was wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience and what course of action did you take to determine what the allergy was? i'm thinking it could be dairy and one of the main ingredients is whey powder and milk powder but the ingredients on the porridge also include corn and rice so obviously we're not sure yet. (no oats and it was gluten free). it's the first time she's ever had anything other than breast milk and banana. i tried her with a small amount of aptamil formula milk a while ago but she spat it out and gagged on it so i abandoned it. she refuses bottles anyway!

i'm unsure what to do now other than just give her fresh fruit and veg and wait for our appointment with the GP (next week). if anyone has any tips or advice i'd be very grateful :) thanks in advance. (sorry this is a bit long!)

[heliotrope]

Yes milk does sound like the most likely but wait to get a test - push GP for a quick referral if you can as the expert allergy doctors will be most helpful to you. See what GP says about weaning but I would stick to fruit and veg and watch carefully every new food until you get more advice.
Wheat, egg, fish and obviously nuts are the others to watch out very carefully (avoid for now maybe) as well as soya which babybarrister has warned about.
Some babies just know what is good for them - my lo wouldn't have bottle either (I'd only tried with breast milk but might have tried formula if he'd taken it) - turned out to have milk and other allergies.

[greenbananas]

Milk is the most likely culprit, but keep an open mind. Sticking to fruit and veg is good idea for now. Your GP should refer you to a paediatrician who has some experience with allergies.

Do you have Piriton in the house?

[OhWhatAPalaver]

yes we do have Piriton now so i'm making sure its around whenever i give her something new, just in case! still keeping away from anything other than fruit n veg for now though.

thanks for the advice everyone, i will see if i can get a quick referral to the allergy clinic at our local hospital. hopefully it won't take too long. i will have to do some reading i think as i know very little about allergies. is it possible she will grow out of it when she's older? we're a vege family anyway but i always thought being vegan would be pretty hard - definitely do-able though!

[NortyNancy]

Yes this happened to us, same age to youghurt. Ours started off identical, hives around the mouth. Unfortunately it esculated to anaphylaxis and needed adrenalin. Its very scary, even when adrenalin isnt needed.

Avoid all milk products, be wary if eggs and nuts too (just in case) and get a referral to an allergy specialist and keep up with the breastfeeding. I personally avoid all the stuff my son is allergic to too as it gets through the milk and makes his eczema worse. You may not find you have to do this though.

[mumat39]

Ohwhatapalaver, so sorry to hear that your DD had such a horrible reaction. :(

I just wanted to say please please ask to be referred to a pediatric allergist and if there is one at your local hospital then great, but if not then it's definitely worth going straight to the people who are specialists in this. My DD had a bad reaction at 6.5 months to wheat in a baby rusk and we were referred to our local hospital. We were only ever seen by dieticians who were out of their depth with allergies, and more so as DD has multiple allergies. We were with them for about 2 years before I realised that we weren't really getting the best care or advice.

Pediatric allergists usually run clinics with a team of specialist nurses and specialist dieticians so you really do get the best possible help. If you live near london there are a few hospitals. If you ring the Allergy UK helpline, they will be able to let you know where your nearest one is. You can then go to the GP and ask to be referred to that specific one. The doctor has to do this if you ask.

Also, corn is another allergen so as others have already said maybe avoid everything that was in that porridge and when introducing new foods do it slowly, so a new food every 3 days and initially maybe try the more safe foods like root vegetables, apples, pears. Also, maybe keep a diary and see if there are any delayed reactions if no immediate ones, like eczema or diarrhea etc.

Take care and good luck with your appointment.

[littleweed10]

If there is a 'good' side to this - please forgive me putting it this way- your poor dd has had a very clear and instant reaction. This means you have far clearer and compelling grounds to get allergy testing, and advice on continued weaning and how to try other food introduction.
It must have been beyond scary, so glad you were able to get fast support. Re mumat39's post I agree with all of it, but our dietician said to try one new food every seven days, having tried a tiny bit more than the previous day on each of the seven days.
I hope you get v speedy expert support on this, for us, it was a rare occasion where our hv came up trumps and got a 6 week referral to a child dietician.

[OhWhatAPalaver]

NortyNancy that's exactly what i was afraid of, it looked like it was getting that way for while but thankfully her airways were fine and she was screaming her head off in the doctors, which i was told is actually a good thing as crying = breathing! the doc did say to be extra careful as the 2nd reaction is likely to be worse :( i'm definitely keeping up with the bf-ing and possible cutting dairy from my diet as DD also has mild eczema and very sensitive skin.

littleweed10 i agree, i'm glad we know that its something in that damn porridge that did it and it was a very clear, instant reaction!

thanks mumat39 i will get a specialist referral and i'll give that helpline a call too. never thought i'd have to deal with such an extreme allergic reaction as i don't have any allergies and DP just gets a bit of hay fever.

[NortyNancy]

We dont have allergies either, it knocked our socks off too. It does get better and she has a good chance of growing out of it. Some children take 1 year, others 6 but it does happen.

[nextphase]

Yes. We had a very similar reaction to (HiPP?) baby porridge after one go with formula earlier in the year.

A&E were great - and we left with liquid antihistamine. Is your piriton tablet or liquid?

The GP was useless, and just said why had I left it to 6 months to introduce food, I was starving him. OK, rant over.

We got a dietician appointment for about 8 weeks later, so I decided to make up some porridge with adult oats and water, and one with milk, and put a patch on his legs one day. Water looked fine, milk reacted! So we independently introduced grains, and avoided dairy.

They refused to prick test us before 1 yr old, and we were advised to stay dairy free, be careful introducing other foods. The useful advice was to use Oat milk fortified with calcium where a milk was required. Getting in enough calories was difficult - he gained weight very slowly, and still eats like a horse and is skinny. We ate lots of avocado, eggs (tho I was very wary of introducing them) and puddings! Obviously this advice was specific to us, but might be worth considering.

The prick test 6 months later showed no reaction so we carefully introduced milk, and have been fine since.

Hope its not to stressful for you.

[nextphase]

Ok, that reads like DS1 is only 1. He is 3. We tried formula once in his first 6mths before weaning.

[OhWhatAPalaver]

nextphase our piriton is liquid, we give it to her with a syringe as its the only way to get her to swallow any of it! wonder if it's got something to do with trying her with formula a few weeks before... even though it was such a small amount..? or maybe she's just al

am gonna get a referral to an allergy clinic at our hosp, our GP is usually ok so hoping for the best :)

[OhWhatAPalaver]

ooerr, first paragraph was meant to say 'maybe she's just allergic anyway' at the end! tired typing... zzz

[greenbananas]

As I understand it, allergic reactions usually happen on the second exposure. (The first time, the body prepares its defences, and the second time it goes crazy and starts firing at itself.) Please don't beat yourself up about the formula. If you had not tried formula, she may have reacted to her second exposure to baby porridge, not her first.

[nextphase]

Yes, it would have taken 2 exposures to get the reaction you saw, so yes, it is because she had the formula, but if you hadn't given the formula, it would have been the second time she had the porridge (assuming its dairy!), so the formula isn't the cause, iyswim?

Hope you haven't had too many more reactions - sounds like your having to give a lot of priton?

[OhWhatAPalaver]

well for some reason, after the porridge incident, i gave banana the day after and she got a mild rash on her face but nothing too major. found this very odd as i'd been giving her banana for a week already with no problems. just happened after the bad porridge! god knows why. so i've only actually given her piriton twice, once after the porridge and once after the banana. i don't really like giving it to her as it makes her drowsy and sleepy.

trying her with carrot today so fingers crossed!

[nextphase]

Hope the carrot was a success.
It might be worth being careful with tomatoes, strawberries, kiwi and other things that make people sensitive also for a bit. Think Banana is something people are sensitive to.
Pears and rice are supposed to be pretty neutral, if you wanted to play it really safe for a few days to build your confidence back up?

[greenbananas]

How did the carrot go?

My DS is allergic to banana (among other things). I don't think it is hugely common, but it is certainly more common to be allergic to banana than to rice or pears.

[OhWhatAPalaver]

thanks next and green, the carrot seemed to go down quite well :) she didn't come up in any rashes and it's the second time she's had it so i'm quite relieved! was getting worried that she was going to be allergic to everything! i'm going to try her with pear next week i think, then maybe some potato. sticking to safe stuff for now.

we went to GP today to get the referral to the allergy clinic, we didn't get our usual doc, we saw a moron instead who said, 'just don't give her the porridge again.' well thank you Einstein, they pay you how much to give advice like that?! he even seemed annoyed that i asked for the referral! last time we go to that guy. sorry rant over now.... hehe

[mumat39]

hello again.

I hope the moronic GP did refer you? How annoying! Well done for insisting though. Fingers crossed your appointment comes through soon.

Good Luck and I hope the weaning is going well. :)

[OhWhatAPalaver]

he did refer us, thanks mumat :) i think i'm going to go down to the local HV clinic today to see if they have any better advice! she had a bit of a rough night last night - quite windy and sicky - and i was worried it was because i gave her carrot but DP was telling me not to be silly and that she was just teething...

[mumat39]

Hi again.

Good Luck with the HV - fingers crossed they can help.

Definitely keep a diary if you can. It might help you see any patterns plus also a good way of logging everything so that you're armed with info when you get the allergist appt.

Carrots, like other root vegetables should be ok, but I remember with my DS I had to start really slowly. So he was ok with baby rice and formula(nutramigen) so then I just started by adding a half teaspoon of a new food into that mix. We actually had to go back to basics as he wasn't doing too well with new foods. So after a few weeks of finding things going through him, we were told by our GP to basically start weaning again and introducing things slowly. I think I increased the carrot by half a teaspoon a day for a couple of days and then 1 teaspoon and then 2 and so on and he seemed to tolerate new stuff better that way. Then I did the same with apple and pear purees and took it from there. Once your DD is handling some of the food better then you may find that you don't have to be quite so slow to add new things in. I don;t think he actually has any allergies (touch wood) but his digestive system just seemed and still does a little, very sensitive.

It could be teething, as well so it's all a bit difficult for them when they're so young as they're little bodies are actually already going through alot.

Hope she's a bit more settled and that your appt comes through soon.
take care
xx

[OhWhatAPalaver]

hi, thanks for the info mumat. that's pretty much what HV said to do. start again with baby rice and proceed slowly! its a shame as she seems to love all the new tastes but then the foods don't agree with her very much. i'm going to start a diary too!

this thread has been really helpful, thanks everyone :)

[rmccamley]

Crikey!!

Aptimel Porridge Appricot for + 6 months has a serious amount of sugar. I have asked them if it is Lactose based but I can believe that is good for babies.

Nutrional value per 100g
Carbohydrates (g) 67.4
of which sugars* (g) 43.7

43% that is ridiculous!!

Adult cereals have about 20% and ideally less than that.

I won't be buying this again.