Giving lactose free formula to a (possibly) CMP intolerant baby

[TheZee]

Hello
My 5 month old dd has reflux. She has been ebf and through keeping a food diary and recording how many times she's thrown up it seems clear that me eating anything with a small trace of milk or soya exacerbates this. We had an appointment with a paed gastro-enterologist a couple of weeks ago and he asked if I wanted to keep breastfeeding. I do, but will need to get her onto some formula as well soon as I will be returning to work and find expressing too difficult. As well as advising us to start solids and prescribing more meds he also said to try her on sma lactose free formula. I have assumed that she is cmp intolerant - as my expertise comes exclusively from google I'm sure I could be wrong - but if I'm not and I give her cows milk derived formula direct what could happen? Given she's been reacting to just a small amount through my milk, isn't there a danger she could have a very extreme reaction? I will talk to the doctor again before I do anything as I am very worried, but I wondered if anyone else here had any knowledge or experience? Thank you.

i agree with you totally

if she was lactose intolerant she would not be able to have your milk, as it contains lactose, and you would definitely know about it by now

when are you returning to work?
if it's post 6 months and your hours aren't hideously long i'd be tempted to suggest that you just feed her in the morning, as soon as you pick her up, and in the evening and any nightfeeds if she still has them, and then just offer solids/water through the day

or, if you could express some breastmilk before you go back to work and freeze it?

but yes, if you do go down the formula route you would want a totally hypoallergenic formula such as nutramigen or neocate. beware though, they don't taste that nice and she may not take it!

hello,
What is her reaction when you have dairy or soya in your diet? My 9 month old son was EBF until he was 8 months old. He was reacting to the dairy etc I had in my diet by getting eczema and squirming every time I fed him (he also had quite a red bottom). As he had these all the time I didn't realise it wasn't normal.

At 8 months I gave him a teaspoon (most of which he spat out) of formula milk and he vomitted profusely, however when I gave him a little stick of cheese to hold and suck (silly me I didn't realise he could have such an extreme reaction) his face, neck and wrists were covered in hives, his eyes swelled and closed over, his hand became swollen where he had held the cheese and his throat started to swell (he was making a strange hoarse sound when trying to cry) - so it was straight to A&E. He is now on neocate (mixed with Nesquik banana flavour milkshake). So you could try giving your dd a teaspoon (or less) of formula (or even just put a drop onto her skin), or you could give it to her whilst at the doctors? Ideally you need to be seen by an Allergy Specialist but it's very difficult getting an appointment with the NHS - we only got an appointment after ds had such an extreme reaction.

Hope this helps.

ps neocate doesn't taste that great (it has quite a metallic taste) but I persevered and added the Nesquik and now ds loves it. It was much easier than I anticipated even though ds is quite a stubborn little fellow! I also mix neocate with his ready brek in the morning (thank goodness he is not allergic to oats too) and sneak it into him that way.

Thank you both. Very helpful. Basically she was throwing up about 6-10 times a day on days with no dairy or soya, and this went up to about 20 times when I accidentally had something with a milk product or soya in (I was substantially dairy and soya free but had not cracked all the hidden ingredients). She also had very watery, gassy, mucousy poos - now she's on some solids it's your run of the mill grown up style. But not excema, swelling, hives etc, so it's not such an extreme reaction, that must have been very scary.
I had wondered about whether she could do without milk when I go back as she will be just over 6 months - I'll be out if the house between about 7.30 and 6.45 I think as the commute is quite long, but I'll just be doing 4 days a week with hopefully one from home. she is very tiny - bouncing along the bottom of the weight chart - I got congratulated on my newborn the other day when she was asleep in the sling - so I wouldn't want to deprive her of nutrients tho. Tried nutramigen - she won't touch it after one sip, don't blame her! Thanks again...

Might try the nesquik idea thanks. Tho she did have a bad reaction to bananas (much puking and pain the day she tried it direct) so maybe not that flavour if it's made of real bananas. It's very conundrummy this baby business isn't it?

You can also get the nesquik powder in chocolate flavour and strawberry, although I think from memory there is something in the chocolate which isn't suitable (some sort of dairy) - good luck!

plus it's made by nestle which is never a good thing!