Baby Allergies - help!

[GemstoneCF]

Hi all,

my daughter is just over 5 months old and has seemingly had some allergies since about two weeks old (blood in poo, green poos, mucus in poo and quite unsettled). I cut out dairy (still breastfeeding) and she improved, then reintroduced to diagnose and she got worse again, so doctor finally admitted it looked like CMPA after fobbing me off for about 2 months. Weirdly, after improving again after cutting out dairy post-diagnosis, she had dodgy poos again after trying her with nutramigen to try and start combi feeding. We put it down to soy allergy as there’s soy in the formula, so I cut that out too. That was 3 months ago and still no improvement (very mucousy poos still, although no blood) so doctor is now saying he doesn’t think it’s CMPA and I should reintroduce dairy again and they referred me to paeds but not til July.
Spoke with dietician who disagreed and said to keep cutting out dairy but to keep a food diary as there’s obv another allergen at play. I’m now cutting out wheat & eggs too to see if it makes a difference (only been about 3 days for wheat and a week for eggs).

My daughter also arches back a lot in cot when lying down and is not sleeping great because of it which seems to me like she’s uncomfortable or refluxy.

All this to say / ask - has anyone gone through similar and was there anything that helped / any advice for what to push for with the GP? She’s a mostly very happy baby and putting on weight very well (born on 9th percentile and now on the 55th exclusively breastfed) so I think that’s why they’re not taking me very seriously…but I can see she’s in discomfort and I want to move her into her own room next month, so want her to be comfortable before then….

thanks in advance! xx

Very similar to my daughter lots of food allergies. If you have had periods where it has been better and then worse again I would focus on what you are increasing in your diet to compensate for the lack of dairy and soya. I started with dairy and soya. Then tested eggs as the next big allergen and tomato and coconut as I was now eating a lot more of those to avoid dairy and soya. She reacted to all three when I tested. Food diaries are absolutely your best friend. Include everything in it. I found a very early warning of a reaction was feeding refusals, needing to held and being harder to keep occupied. This happened about a day before the loose stools and sick.
My daughter has reflux in addition to her food allergies although they did make her worse. She has needed high dose medications which she is still in aged 3.5 and causes us more trouble than her allergies.

Is it just me or are more and more babies children having allegies comapred to when I was young - very early 60's

All of our GC have some form of allergy

Good luck

I think it is more we have the words to describe what we were seeing.

My grandmother only realised that reason her youngest never stopped crying was due to silent reflux when the said baby was 60 and has a grandchild with silent reflux. My gran said "I always blamed myself" so I don't think it's a bad thing to have the words

My sister almost certainly had cmpa in the early 80s. She was just a very sicky baby who projectile vomited every bottle from 6 weeks when my mum had to stop breastfeeding due to being in a coma and turning 2. She was born at 6lb13 and by 10 weeks was just 7lb10!! She was admitted into hospital to be forced fed milk and was weaned around 10-12 weeks. She didn't put on weight until she was 2 which is the average age you out grow a milk allergy. She continued to have random spells of vomiting which only stopped aged 38 when she turned vegan so probably continued to have some problems with dairy.

@Superscientist thanks so much, I’ll definitely give it a try, glad to hear the food diary worked for you as I’ve been sceptical that it could make much of a difference! Thanks again

@Superscientist I completely agree, also think it’s actually more common than people are aware. When I shared that my daughter has suspected CMPA, a colleague of mine told me both her kids had it as babies - they’re 37 and 33. Just goes to show it’s nothing new…

Do you mean intolerance OP? Does your baby get any signs of an allergic reaction? Rash, shortness of breath, wheeze, swelling of lips/eyes?

Cmpa in babies is now separate into delayed or nonIGE (formally intolerance) allergies which has gastric symptoms and immediate or IgE allergies (rashes and wheezing etc). The difference between delayed nonIGE allergies and intolerances is the amount of the food required for a reaction. Remote traces can trigger a reaction with delayed allergies where as with an intolerance it's more proportional to the portion size.