Long haul flight with Nutramigen fed 4-month old

[Wincheki]

I have to travel to New Zealand from the UK with my 4-month old who has a severe milk protein allergy. She is on prescribed nutramigen lipil formula and cannot take normal formula.

Any suggestions as to how I manage to prepare her feeds during the 30 hours we will be travelling and in transit?? I am at a loss! Please note:

• Nutramigen does not come in ready to feed liquid form. Only powder.
• Nutramigen has to be made up with boiled water no less than 70 degrees celcius. WHO guidelines state this is essential to kill potentially life threatening bacteria in the formula.
• I can't add boiling water to the formula directly as it apparently kills some of the nutrients in the milk.

I am really desperate! I have no idea how I will manage her feeds safely... Any suggestions massively appreciated.

The airline should be able to provide boiled water for your baby on board. I would also suggest taking a flask of boiled wated with you, the type you press a button on top to pour so you don't have to open it and let all the heat out (Fisher Price do a good one). Use one of those containers with 3 or 4 compartments that you can add the measured amount of Nutramigen in for each feed. You can also buy disposable strerile bottles (Boots do them). Take a letter from your child's doctor giving details of his/her allergy. You will probably be asked to drink a small amount of the hot water at security. It should stay hot enough for the first feed at least and then you can ask for more boiled water on the flight. Contact the airline beforehand to check.

*water sorry! Typing in a hurry.

Thanks freefrommum - really good ideas. I will have a look at the Fisher Price flasks. I was worried about how I would get the water to exactly the right temp, but I guess having it slightly too hot is better than too cool. I just can't afford for my little girl to get sick from bad formula - she has no spare weight available to lose! One of the things I read on some of the other posts about taking formula fed babies on flights was that you shouldn't use the boiled water the airline provide. Any idea why? It has to be good enough for people to have in their tea?!

My DS is on neocate so same problem of only powdered formula. With nutramigen it can be kept in the fridge once made up for 2 hours, so that might give you the option to make up formula before your dd starts screaming for it!
Check the instructions on your tin though because with neocate, the water has to be below 70 degrees or it destroys the formula, so they advise using boiled water that has cooled for at keast half an hour. I know this is different to the WHO guidelines, but that's for normal formula milk. So what I do is sterilise all my bottles for the day and then immediately fill them with boiled water and seal with teat/cap. The bottle and water stay sterile for 24 hours, so I just fill each one with formula when I need them. The tommee tippee individual formal powder holders are really handy too.

Also, if your dd has a severe cmp allergy, shouldn't she be on nutramigen AA or neocate? Just thought I'd mention it in case she is still not improving despite being on nutramigen lipil.

Good luck for the flight!