18 week old baby - lactose intolerant?

[pamelat]

Hello, the doctor has today prescribed soya based milk for my 4 month old baby daughter.

She has always suffered with digestive problems, I was breast feeding her until 3 weeks or so ago.

In the last month or so she has become increasingly unhappy, making her body go rigid, going red in the face and screaming and then pooing, sometimes 5 to 6 times a day

In the last 3 days especially there has been a lot of screaming, she is teething too.

I am going to start this new milk tomorrow but I dont hold much hope out for it, I think it has been prescribed because the doctor doesn't really know what is wrong with her .... ??

She is managing to sleep in the evenings, waking every 3 hours to feed, the screaming is predominantly during the afternoons.

its really upsetting me to see her like this, does anyone have experience of lactose intolerance or this soya based milk and any success on it .. ????

She is gaining weight well and not being particulary sicky, which is why I am sceptical about this intolerance .. ?

If she is lactose intorlerant there is a chance she will also react the same to soya as about 50% of lactose intolerant children are also the same with soya.

Which formula is she on coz sometimes SMA can do this to babies??

don't have any experience, sorry, but I have a friend whose dd seems to be going through a similar thing so I shall keep my eye on this thread and see if someone has some fab advice

Pamelat, is she sick a lot?

i thought that breastmilk was different to formula in terms of allergy?

Yes but Pamelat gave up over three weeks ago and it has been worse since then by the look of it? Maybe she doesn't suit that formula? or has colic or reflux rather than allergy??

If you're not convinced soya is the solution, you could try nutramigen, which is OK for lactose, milk protein and soya intolerance. It's expensive - about £12.50 for a 400g tin - but if it works, you can get it on prescription. You might have to fight to get it, though.

Dd is lactose intolerant. She was gaining weight absolutely fine, but was bringing up a lot of stomach acid. Nutramigen solved the problem in 24 hours. She is OK with soya to a degree (too much and she gets diarrhoea (sp?)). I think your gp is fairly enlightened to suggest your dd might have an intolerance - it took me weeks of arguing with my hv and gp before they accepted that I was not just being paranoid.

Hello

thank you, when I was breast feeding her I used to give her a bottle of SMA once a day (at night) but it made her green poo, and very smelly.

I changed to Aptamil on the advice of the health visitor, apparently its gentler on the tummy.

She has suffered with her digestion since she was about 10 days old. We thought it was "colic" and that she would grow out of it but no such joy yet

My son had reflux, and was told it can present as the same as lactose intolerance, so we toook the treatment for reflux slowly to check it was that?

My son had silent reflux to start so didn't throw up all the time? Also my son never had problems with his weight gain...

She isn't particulary sicky

At 6 weeks we tried infant gaviscon as was told she had silent reflux and intially (for 3 days or so) we had some success with it, she actually slept for 2 hours the instant I gave it to her ... ! I thought it was our miracle cure. This effect wore off and it seemed to stop making any difference.

I am keen to try it again but GP doesnt think necessary, thinks that its related to her feeding (she does and did occassionally pull away from feeding and scream)

Does anyone know why she makes herself go rigid?

Maybe try that new Aptamil easy digest? It has at least less than half of the lactose present in other formulas and is partially digested too so she won't have to break down the proteins. Would work i think for both colic and reflux (a bit) - then you could work out what it is.

Rigid - maybe pain on feeding or frustration that it doesn't come out quick enough??? is the teat slow?

Hi, I think bf can make poo smellier than those that are exclusively ff.....I was advised to switch dd2 to soya milk as they thought that she was lactose intolerant. This was due to very bad excema. She was mixed fed when I was advised to do so. Tbh I wished they had told me to ditch the formula and exclusively bf. Anyway the soya seemed to help but she is NOT dairy intolerant.

Perhaps you could ditch the formula and replace it with a bottle of ebm??

Def think the pulling off and rigid could be wanting it to come out quicker!

the teets are level 2 (from 3 months) and the next stage up is from 6 months, don't really want to try those just yet.

She goes rigid at various points throughout the day, not just feeding.

I just think that if she had an intolerance that it would be more consistent and even worse maybe than it is

Hi pamelat

My ds is 5 month today and we have had a nightmare time!!! He was very unsettled and wasn't feeding well at all, so we were put on SMA LF and things settled down for a couple of days, but got worse again! We then added gaviscon, which again helped at first, but not for long. After a few horrendous weeks of screaming, we have spent 2 days in hospital where we were observed and he is now on ranitidine for reflux.

His symptoms sound similar to what your dd is showing. He is very fussy with his bottle and shoves it out of his mouth, has very unsettled times during the day where he screams non-stop, whils arching his back, going rigid and flinging his arms and legs out. He has really settled down since the medicine and we have had a fantastic week.

He never used to get sick, but has started getting sick the last couple of weeks. He has never taken his milk well, so has only gained weight slowly.

Its worth looking into reflux. It took me weeks for the drs and hv's to listen to me - they just kept saying he was crying because I was anxious!!!!!!!!! I am not an anxious person at all - i just knew that my ds was in pain and wanted something done about it!

Hope this may be of some help.

Please don't give her the soya milk.

From this article:
"The Department of Health warns against routine use of soy-based infant formulas because of the high content of phytoestrogens - compounds that mimic the action of the female hormone oestrogen.

It is feared this could pose a risk to the long-term reproductive health of infants, and some babies are allergic to both kinds of milk."

Soya milk is also known to cause tooth decay in infants.

Your GP is also showing ignorance in suggesting that it is lactose intolerance. Lactose intolerance usually affects adults, whereas it's the protein in cows milk that usually causes a problem for children.

Go back to your GP and ask him to prescribe Nutramigen or Pepti instead.

If she is really intolerant, she would have runny poo constantly, tummy ache ++ and be generally miserable i would think?
I don't know what else to suggest.

It is so stressful when they are not happy/well and you don't know why.

Another similar article here, just in case you are one of the anti-DM brigade.

Just follow your gut instinct pamelot . You know her best.

Hi Pamalut,

Have a little experience of this DD1 is CMP (dh has a lactose intolerance aswell)she was fully breast fed but cried what felt like hours a day, I removed dairy and lactose from my diet and had a different child within 24- 48 hours.

DD2 also showed signs of intolerance and I removed dairy from my diet with v. good effect....

As for your sitation, personally I would try the soya and establish if it improves the situation over the weekend, it is sweeter than normal formula (and easier to get the baby to take than the hypoallergenic formulas which imo taste rancid) but your baby does not yet have teeth so in the short term to establish if dairy is a problem it would have a negligable impact. If the situation improves I would return to your GP and request nutrimigen or pepti due to the longer term health implications for soya ( if they refuse I have about 8 tins of nutrimigen lying around if you want to give a go!)

If you have no improvement after the weekend it may be reflux or a soya intolerance aswell

FWIW DD2 is now on a mixed soya and breast regime as she point blank refused nutrimegen and for her It was more important to get calories in than worry about the fertity aspects for the small amounts we use.

Good luck hope it works out for you

Thank you all, will look in to it

She had an ok night last night, waking at 11, 3 and 6am and feeding and sleeping well but then this morning she has just screamed for 2 hours again, its heart breaking.

She drank half of her bottle at 6am (still aptamil as the pharmacy was only having stock arrive today) and within 15 minutes she was rigid, screaming etc etc - I dont understand why it doesnt happen at night too?

Anyway, its awful. Just fallen out with hubby as things a bit fraught - it seems to have become a competition of who has done the most for her, silly really but I am now quite anxious, but like you say (sausagebear) its anxiety as a result of her being poorly, not vice versa.

Will only try the soy based one for 48 hours and see if it makes a difference and go back to the docs on Tuesday

Thank you,

Will read those articles too ....

Hi pamelat. Have just seen this and your dd sounds very similar to my 5 month old dd. How are you getting on now? Is dd any better?

Hi Pamelat, have also only just seen this and sounds like my 4 month old dd. Green very smelly poo and screams with BF, SMA Gold & Aptamil, a few drops of colief results in less screams but constant vomitting. Kept harrassing GP who said to try soy. Happier baby for a good few days then poo large, very hard & painful with screams of pain when trying to fill her nappy. Went back to GP who really seemed clueless & I asked if we could try SMA LF. DD is now quite grizzly, tired & can sometimes work herself up to screams but much less vomit & poo normal colour & consistencey. HV been off sick since dd was 3 wks old, GP doesn't know what to suggest. I feel so anxious that she is not settled & happy... and that I need someone to be able to advise me as it always seems to be me suggesting things to GP & Im sick of messing dd around!
Good luck with soy - let me know how you get on

Hello, well I read the articles about soy milk and decided I didn't want it, so went back to the docs for nutramigen (spl?!) which he prescribed but she refused to drink it (I tasted it, its nasty!) In the mean time I had bought colief drops on the advice of a friend and they have really really helped. She isnt fixed by any means but things are better and she now sleeps through the night!

Hi, Just joined mumsnet, as my 4 month old has been diagnosed with lactose intolernace following rotavirus. she shows lots of similar symptoms to those listed, but is constantly whingy and whiney, was hoping lactose free milk would be the answer!! she is totally breastfed at the moment so I need to get her onto bottles slowly, after feeding how "nasty" the formula is worried she won't take it. I have heard that there are drops that you can add to breast milk or other formula, does anyone know anything about them? She had colic upto 9 weeks old, which I am now told could have been early sign of intolerance, but took her to cranial osteopath - MAGIC!!