Breastfed baby cmpa advice plz.

[Jojosmam]

Hello ladies

I have a 12 week old baby EBF. Since he was a week
Old he had upset tummy being very sick, lots of poos
Which were slimy/green, sore bum & colicky pain. He
Wouldn't sleep for very long and was generally a very
Unhappy baby.
At 8 weeks I mentioned to health visitor
And she suggested going dairy free so I cut out dairy
And egg from my diet. The result was amazing he was
A completely changed baby. Sleeping for longer
And happier in himself.
HOWEVER he is still being sick after feeds, (mucusy)
He feeds every 2 hours. And cries inconsolably with
Colicky pain at times.

I have nephews & nieces with food intolerances although
My older son has no allergies/eczema.

We have been referred to paed. Gp is out of his
Depth & health visitor is not v helpful

I don't know wether too cut out wheat & soya from
My diet & continue to breastfeed. Or to get him
Some formula like neocate/nutramigen

Ideally I would love to cont breastfeeding but everytime
He's sick & crying in pain DH & family make me feel guilty
That I'm too blame for his suffering because of something I've
Eaten.

Sorry for the essay 1st post but I hope somebody can help
Xx

Hi jojo I would suggest you try cutting soya, because about half of CMPA babies also react to soya. The egg thing is less common, never understood why HVs think dairy and eggs go together so unless there's a family history of multiple food intolerances I'd do one thing at a time. I did dairy/ soya free bf for over a year but I think if I'd had to eliminate anything else I'd have switched to Neocate, and if that's what you want to do there's no shame in it. Consider the long term too, because the special formulas taste horrid and it can be difficult to persuade an older baby to accept them. We ended up with BF until 2 yrs alongside oat milk and calcium/vitamin supplements, all supervised by a dietician. It worked out ok, and my son completely outgrew his intolerances, but it wasn't what I set out to do.

Hi bakingtins thanks for your advice, it reassures me that I'm not the only one having to go through this. X
I've decided to cut out soya will trial for 2 weeks & see what happens. Bit apprehensive because soya is found in most things.

The main difficulty we found was bread, which nearly always contains soya flour. Tesco used to do some farmhouse batch loaves that were soya free and our local independent bakery didn't use soya flour. It eliminates all the alpro type dairy replacements as well. Worth a try though. My LO also seemed to react to other peas/beans presume because of similarities to soya beans.

Waitrose do various sliced loaves that are dairy and soya free - a few months ago I could only find one that my son could have but now they seem to be doing a few more. Nice to have a choice for a change!

Hi :)
My DS is CMPI and has a possible soya allergy and bad facial ezcema as well. I'm BF atm, but I go back to work in a week and a half so we are trying to get him to bottle feed breast milk.

I would say firstly make sure you are getting a balanced diet as even with the usual breastfeeding supplements I ended up very deficient in vitamin D (not pleasant!) and lost loads of weight I didn't need to loose at first.

We tried neocate LCP but he wouldn't take it (smells and tastes disgusting) and then when he finally did he reacted to that as well (Dr told me it's not unheard of but very rare). I would try getting him a formula now, even if you are going to BF most of the time as it might be very tricky switching later.

Dairy and Soya seem to be in absolutely everything, but you can find alternatives to most things (even dairy soya free dark chocolate - waitrose stocks several different types / flavours). I refuse to make more than one meal so my DD (2.8) and DH are now mostly dairy and soya free too.

Keep on at the Paed until you get a proper allergy prick test so you know exactly what you have to avoid - the first time I went to see an allergy specialist, he just accepted what I said without any testing at all and we are now having to wait to see someone else!

Good luck - it's hard work at first but it should end up ok :)

workingmum just wanted to point out that a lot of children have intolerances, not true allergies, and will be negative on allergy testing that looks for immunoglobulins. If you get positive results that is useful, but a negative does not mean there are no intolerance issues. Withdrawal and challenge with a suspect food is the gold standard for diagnosis.

Very true, but my DS is still having issues, and with weaning it would have been very comforting to know if he was truly allergic to anything, as we can't seem to narrow it down with just elimination :)

sorry dont mean to hijack your thread OP but im in a similar situation, my (ebf)ds was diagnosed with likely cmpa and theres been a huge difference since i cut out dairy but it still seems to me like hes reacting to something - hes now (at 3 months) developing eczema, still has slightly mucousy nappies and painful wind that wakes him up at night. Its 6 weeks til we see the paed again so im thinking ill cut out soya in the meantime but it seems a bit overwheming! where are the main places i need to keep an eye on? is soya the next most likely thing after dairy? i havent used any soya replacements so its just the 'hidden' stuff im looking at

oh and workingmum what age do they do skin prick tests from?

Skin prick tests can be negative with some types of allergy or positive when you're sensitised but not allergic so are only good for confirming suspicion of allergy to certain things.

If you've tried CMP and soya free diet the next milk would be nutramigen (bit more broken down than neocate which is roughly the same as breast milk of someone who is avoiding CMP) so important to start these milks early because they taste awful so bigger babies won't take them.

There are national guidelines the GP should be able to look at while you're waiting to see a paediatrician.

ruth1104 - they do them in all ages according to the NHS website, but I have finally got an appointment with a different allergist on Thursday so will try to remember to ask then :)

That would be v useful for us all thankyou x. How is your baby taking to the bottle hope u get sorted & everything falls into place before you return to work.

He's finally starting to take to it, but I am having to scald it after expressing but before it goes in the fridge; it is the only way we can get him to take it!

DS finally has a proper diagnosis - Allergies to Cows Milk (not just an intolerance), Egg and Peanuts. Also I was told to still avoid Soya for now as it might be the cause of his ezcema, I will have to challenge him on that when the ezcema is more under control. They are awaiting blood test results to see if he is allergic to other nuts.

I asked about when they start doing the skin prick test, and they said they do them at any age even newborns on occasion, and that they have been doing more and more babies.

The skin prick test was really straight forward - didn't hurt him at all (well, not until he reacted - then he was furiously scratching!)

and by 'not just' I don't mean to belittle intolerance's! I am just very annoyed at the previous allergist!