Does my breastfed baby have a food allergy

[LSMZ]

Hi,

Sorry for long posts. I've been trying to work out what's been going on with my baby and would appreciate if anyone who does have an allergy baby had a similar experience because I've cut tonnes of things from my diet and I don't feel I'm getting anywhere.

My little girl is nearly 7 months old now. She used to sleep really well at night up until 13 weeks and was mostly happy and didn't cry too much. She's had reflux from 3 weeks old - both silent but also used to throw up what felt like a whole feed, sometimes several times a day. That got better at 10 week and became like normal baby spit up. She also had baby acne which again cleared up around the same time. She's always been a comfort feeder and is 91st percentile for weight.

Then we hit the 4 month sleep regression, caught covid and also moved house and things got so much harder. She became quite fussy at the breast, squirming around and then the night wake ups got more frequent (hourly or less). She wasn't happy to play by herself and moaned a lot. She cried more, especially if I tried to do anything other that feed her to sleep. And the naps were 30 minutes and unable to be extended meaning she was just overtired every day. She looked so tired but just couldn't sleep anymore. And when she woke overnight she seems to have lots of gas and was straining a lot without anything coming out and went back to doing poos overnight and generally more frequently. It was also so difficult to burp her when previously the air came up easy. Then she developed eczema mildly but all over her body. The poos were explosive a lot of the time and had a strange liquid green outline. They stopped being seedy and became more mucousy. She also had permanent nasal congestion since having covid.

I gave up soya and dairy and a few days later oats because I felt she got worse after swapping to oat milk. I kept a food diary and noticed she was happier after I stopped eating hummus everyday. There was no immediate, definitely this helped feeling but the poos seemed to get less and she seemed to get a bit happier the nasal congestion cleared after a week and a half and so did the eczema. I made a few mistakes with soya and felt things got worse when I did (more poos and more straining and a purple/red spot rash around the eyes mostly). Then I did a dairy rechallenge after 4 weeks dairy free and stayed on dairy for 2 weeks. The poos went back to being seedy and her skin looked really good, but she seemed more gassy and sort of squirmy all the time, hyper and the nasal congestion came back immediately. So after 2 weeks I cut it out again. The nasal congestion got a bit better but hasn't gone this time. She's still gassy but a bit less and absolutely nothing I've done has made a difference to night sleep or the reflux which bothers her. Her eczema has been worse since I've been back dairy free this time. I've since cut out eggs and nuts but she's still unhappy. She can nap for longer now but not sure if that's just developmental. I've started weaning to see if I can pick up any reactions better that way but she's so fussy most days I feel like I don't have enough good days for a comparison and her skin is up and down all the time. Plus teething thrown in the mix.

Could this all just be normal baby fluctuations? I'm beginning to think that I've been over interpreting or maybe it's to do with something else (she has a bad latch because I have a fast flow and she over feeds or maybe just the reflux that bothers her etc).

Can anyone shed light?

It very much could be. My daughter had a lot of food allergies and found for ages that whenever I took out a food I increased a different food that she was also allergic too

Absolutely anything can be an allergen and my daughter has more vegetables than top14 foods that she reacts too! Keep an eye on food groups too, my daughter reacts to all nightshades except potatoes and all alliums but only a couple of legumes so it's not always all of them.

It could also be reflux in addition to the food allergies. My daughter has both and isn't showing signs of outgrowing either and still needs high dose reflux meds at nearly 4. Her reflux goes in and out of being undercontrol every few months. Allergic reaction, growth, colds, teething and all sorts of other things seem to trigger her reflux to get out of control. As a young baby she was a mix of silent and regular reflux but since she had been more upright it has gone to solely silent reflux. She needs high dose omperazole, gaviscon and domperidone to keep it under control as well as removing all 20 of her allergens

Thanks for your reply! Your poor girl still having reflux at 4 :(
At what age did you start suspecting allergies with your daughter? Did she have similar symptoms?

It does sound like she could do, yes. I'm afraid I can't give meaningful advice as my daughter 'just' has CMPA which is more straightforward in some ways -- it sounds like your daughter may have multiple allergies or intolerances, but it is so so hard to tell, isn't it? The hourly wake ups definitely suggest discomfort to me, as does the comfort feeding. Constant breastfeeding way beyond normal cluster feeding was my daughter's first symptom of CMPA, before the horrible poos started a bit later!

For me personally, I thought I had a dairy intolerance for years. Cramping, bloating, mucous. I didn't cut it out completely but kept it minimal.
Until I had to cut out wheat when breastfeeding my youngest. Took a while for me to realise that dairy didn't have the same affect on me. No discomfort when I sneakily eat a bit more cheese than I should.
I now believe the dairy was fuelling my bodys reaction to a different intolerance, namely wheat (which I thought my DC had inherited from his Dad, turns out its from both of us).

So yes, there could be multiple allergies or intolerances, and whatever is causing it could be exacerbated by dairy. Cutting it out might help, but it's not the root cause.

Also, on top of wheat, my DC has other known and unknown intolerances, which Im desperate to narrow down but it's so hard even now at 21months.

She started with symptoms from day dot but they weren't diagnosed until 17weeks

One of her symptoms was a feeding aversion which started in week 1 but I was told it was probably lots of other things so we had to rule out those first and it was only once we could look at the whole picture they became apparent. She pooed probably 20 times a day but went on to gaviscon which reduced it too 5-8 times a day but very firm and she struggled to pass them so that masked some of her symptoms. Her poos could be projectile too. If she pooed mid nappy changes it shot 2ft off the edge of the mat so we could only change her in hard surfaces.She screamed a lot. It got really bad between weeks 10 and 17 and I raised it repeatedly with the GP but she said it's just reflux she would be very poorly if she was reacting to your milk and reflux is just a washing issue. At 17 weeks she scored very poorly on her 4 month assessment we ended up seeing a paediatrician for something else and he put her on the highest dose omperazole and suggested that it would be worth try dairy and soya free diet even though it was unlikely

She only contact napped and even when awake had to be in my arms. She was literally in my arms for 23h a day and even dad struggled to sooth her. Needless to say I got very touched out.

I had a food diary that should a correlation between soya and her symptoms as we were mostly vegetarian and ate a lot of soya meat replacements... especially on difficult days when it was a quick meal but only resulted in more bad days. She peaked 36-72h after I ate a food but they could be much earlier signs. Within 20 minutes of eating a beef burger she was refusing to feed and by 12h she was screaming. About 10% of babies with cmpa also have a beef allergy.

I'm sorry a lot of that time is a blur. I had severe pnd and psychosis at the time partially due to the way my daughter was

@BurbageBrook That's interesting about the comfort feeding! It is so hard to tell and narrow it down.

@DodgyCanOpener very interesting. I think I will have to cut wheat next as I've not tried that yet.

@Superscientist that sounds like hell what you went through. We've not had it as bad as that luckily. That's amazing that you managed to work to all out and continue breastfeeding.

I only managed to get to 10 months when I had to switch to formula as my own health took a hit.
She is nearly 4 now we haven't made any progress with reintroducing any of her foods and she still had reflux but she is the happiest little girl and never complains if she had to have different foods others.

@LSMZ I think the general advice is to cut out one food at a time rather than multiple, so it is more obvious as to what allergies are causing a reaction, though I appreciate this is really difficult.

Have you tried peanut butter yet with your little one? If you haven't, and I don't want to concern you but I'd proceed with caution if you think they are reacting to hummus. My son reacted to hummus and I'd put off introducing peanut for ages but I was having numerous peanut energy bars per day and his eczema was horrific. When I eventually gave him a small amount, he reacted badly to it and it turns out he's extremely allergic to peanuts and we now carry an epi pen . Peanut and hummus are both legumes, so I'd just say to be very mindful when introducing it.

It was only after this episode (that landed him in A&E) that meant we could have a blood allergy test to confirm this allergen, as well as a few others that we thought he had too.

@Chanel05 yes I don't think I've been sensible really. I've not tried peanut yet and I am terrified. I've tried egg and dairy and they haven't seemed to cause any problems so far. Other than eczema did you son react in any other way to the peanuts in your breastmilk? I did have a strange incident the other day when I had peanut butter for breakfast and now I am very worried.

@LSMZ it was mainly his skin but cracked and bleeding all over. We have steroid cream for it and it'd clear up when I applied it but then coke straight back. Obviously we never have peanut products in our home or consumed now and his skin has never been as bad!

What was the reaction you had? I was really anxious about trying my son on baked beans (another legume!) having had issues with hummus and obv peanut so I asked his allergy consultant about how to try it, thinking he would just say it'll be fine and he actually recommended trying them in the hospital Costa so that we were nearby to A&E! So haven't had the courage 😬. I know it sounds mad but it might be worth considering peanut in the hospital cafe on this basis. Best case, baby will be fine and you've been extra cautious and worst case, you're already at A&E where you'd need to go anyway. I only gave him a tiny spoon full and his whole body was covered in hives and bleeding within 30 seconds.

@Chanel05 gosh that sounds awful. I've heard of people trying peanut close to hospitals before.
I ate peanut butter for breakfast and everything seemed fine until 2pm I tried to feed her to sleep and she woke up immediately rolled off my breast and screamed hysterically like I'd hurt her and then did the same again when I tried to out her back on. Then I couldn't settle her to sleep for hours after that. It was so bizarre because nothing like that has ever happened before.