positive reducing substances test - lactose intolerance

[kbsydney]

Hi - my 9 week old DD has had the reducing substances test done and the results are positive. To my understanding, this indicates a lactose intolerance. My question is, can I continue to breast feed her (she is currently exclusively BF)? She is gaining weight well but she screams and screams for hours on end and is clearly in discomfort.

I would like to continue to breast feed her but I can't cope with all the screaming. Will lactose free formula help? She is on zantac at the moment for reflux - but maybe she doesn't have reflux and is just in pain from lactose?? I already only feed 1 boob per feed and wait at least 3 hours between feeds.

I understand that my diet has no bearing on the amount of lactose in my milk.

As an aside - my DS (now 2 years, 3 months) has a problem with lactose but has never been officially diagnosed. He still has no dairy and only lactose free milk or formula.

Thanks for your help!

have never heard of this test, can you tell us more?

you can stop milk in your diet and this might help.

9 weeks is still early days and babies commonly suffer from colic, and certainly is cows milk is a problem, then removing it from your milk is quite safe.
be careful to take calcuim supplements, eat plenty of green veg and just to be sure a glass of calcuim fortified orange juice, (tropicana ) will make sure all is ok.

so, with the baby, bowel movements ok?
just upper intol /reflux?

thanks for your message. I don't really know too much but reducing substances show carbohydrates in the stool that are not being absorbed. Results are negative or positive (Negative ? this is the normal result and means that the body is digestying and absorbing sugars properly
Positive ? this means there are substances in the stool that can act as ?reducing agents?, i.e. there are forms of sugar in the stool that have not been absorbed by the body)

Bowel movements are very mucousy, explosive, pretty much diarrhoea. And lots of screaming.....

Am happy to remove cows milk from my diet, but cows milk protein intolerance is dependent on mother's diet, level of lactose in milk isn't, so I'm not sure if this would help at all??

Happy to hear any advice as I'm a bit in the dark.

Incidentally my son had exactly the same symptoms and was on Zantac and Losec for a year before I put him completely on lactose free formula and no dairy and he was great after that.... Coincidence??

Lots of doctors advise mothers to remove cows milk from diet, but are given dietary advice for their own health. ( ask for this from your gp.)

Lots of people with milk intolerence cant even have lactose free milk, my daughter cant have anything from an udder.

human milk is made for humans, cows milk is not, so its sensible to carry on breastfeeding without you eating any milk.

Some RARE babies are unable to thrive on human milk, but these babies dont gain weight and are seriously ill. These are normally multiple food intolerent/allergic infants. Hosptials normal make own individual formulas for these children.

babies milk intolerence:

The cows milk protein irrirates the valve sitting at the top of the stomach and causes the milk and stomach acid to flow back out of the stomach. This can result in milk being undigested , and travels through the body and results in gut pain ( inner tubing swells up and causes pain iyswim) and stools are very nasty indeed.

baby will be in extreme pain lying flat on back as this causes stretching of swollen gut. so prop up to sleep and after feeds. I am sure you are already doing this btw!

is this helpful?

yes that's really helpful! - thank you!! So, is it possible that DD has a cows milk protein intolerance which is causing the reflux and by getting rid of all dairy that her reflux could go and so no need to medicate for that?

yes. but once you have removed all milk from your diet while breastfeeding it can still take weeks for her to be fully recovered. it takes a long time for gut to heal as we can stop using it iyswim!

i do hope you are getting medical support for this a gp/pead/immunologist?

yes am getting help from GP who also helped us with DS a couple of years ago with similar problems. But she said to me that if I reduce my dairy intake then the lactose level in my milk will go down.... which I'm not sure is true?! So I thought I'd ask on here as there are lots of knowledgeable people here!

Waiting to get into see a paed but it'll take a few weeks...