Will Neocate cure my ebf 5 month old's eczema ? Let me know your experience before I reluctantly ditch Bfing

[thegrandsophy]

We have a strong family history of food allergies/atopy. dc2 has suffered from all over body eczema since 3 months and been treated by gp with steroids to marginal effect. Has always been exclusively bf. I decided to cut out dairy 10 days ago but saw dermatologist yesterday who said I should stop breast feeding and start her on neocate formula. I am happy to live on a very restricted diet for the next few months rather than give up bfing completely ie increase restrictions above simply dairy but she said I could never restrict my diet sufficiently and better just to give her formula which was completely clean. Am a bit upset and am worried that I could go through all the trauma of stopping breast feeding immediately and then find out it doesn't make that much difference but obviously want to do what is best for her. Any stories of miracle cures would be appreciated and how long does it take?

What rubbish advice! From experience, I would say it is absolutely possible to "restrict your diet sufficiently", but it requires some considerable effort on your part which you seem perfectly willing to do. There is cetainly no guarentee that substituting with neocate would provide a miracle cure as there are many other variables to consider, other than diet, that can contribute to eczema. Not to mention the significant benefits that breastfeeding provides, not least in going some way to protect against food allergy which so often goes hand-in-hand with eczema.

Have you considered removing eggs and soya from your diet too, as these can also be triggers? I would suggest you ask for a referral to a dietician though, before you start removing whole groups of food from your diet. Please don't feel pressured into stopping breastfeeding, as it is clearly something that you wish to continue with, and most certainly is not the cause of your childs eczema, to suggest necate will fix it because it is "clean" is ridiculous. For what it's worth, my dairy allergic daughter reacted badly to both neocate and nutramigen, so I know first hand of it's limitations.

Sorry, that sounded a bit preachy. It so infuriates me the useless advice handed out by HCPs to parents struggling for answers. I too was told by an aging GP to stop breastfeeding my DD immediately at 10 weeks old, and that I was making her ill by feeding her too frequently

Turns out she has multiple food allergies, and his suggestion to try formulas only exaccerbated her symptoms. I'm not saying this is likely to happen to your DD, just that if you wish to continue breastfeeding, you should be supported in your decision and given the knowledge to carry this out, rather than fobbed off!

Doesn't sound preachy at all. So nice to hear from someone has been through it and you have just put into words what I was feeling miserable about - that my breast milk is a bit mucky and is making her ill! I haven't found the dairy that difficult to give up (one look at itchy baby makes chocolate less tempting) but have now realised that probably need to cut out some more food stuffs like soy and eggs (had been substituting with Soy which probably wasn't a good idea). I don't mind her having some formula - had planned to do this in the next few months anyway just didn't want to give up tomorrow, especially if it doesn't make her better. Am thinking of getting some Neocate to try gently may be once a day and also be a bit stricter with my own diet at the same time. She is being RAST tested on Thursday but Consultant thought the results were likely to be fairly inconclusive given her age.

Yes I agree! It is perfectly possible - albeit hard - to restrict your diet sufficiently. I did it with dd1 who had awful eczema and is still anaphylactic to dairy. I was dairy, egg and nut free whilst feeding her - I would certainly try excluding dairy and egg. We were pretty certain dairy was a culprit - she had had an anaphylactic reaction to a tiny bit of formula given in desperation - but actually egg seemed to be the thing that affected her skin most.

Cutting these 2 out completely cured her skin within a month. She has had virtually no eczema at all since 8 months (she is now 6).

I also tried not to eat loads of wheat and didn't go mad on shellfish. It wasn't wildly enjoyable and I lost weight but that was partly because we were new to allergies and didn't know how to fill up safely. I am now much better at cakes, biscuits, snacks etc because I have to make them for my daughter.

BTW I have been mainly dairy and egg free whilst bf dd2 - she has virtually no eczema, I feel fine and (sadly) have not lost weight!

Keep bf I would say.

Also slightly complicated by the fact that I think some of the emollients she has tried (epaderm, oily cream, aveeno) have seemed to make her symptoms flare but noone really believes me on this and am feeling that they think I am a bit mad and lentil-weavery. Am HCP myself so is probably doing me lots of good professionally to be on the receiving end of all this but tough going on the old mental health.

I know what you mean OP about your breastmilk - it is easy to feel guilty when your baby is suffering. I have managed to rationalise it more this time though. It is vastly better for them - if I weren't bf and giving normal formula my baby would have had an enormous quantity of cow's milk by now. And neocate, which dd1 eventually had at about 16 months - is ok but pretty horrible stuff. They typically don't like it much.

Your bm may have let some allergens through but it has done a load of good too.

I was advised by the dietician to stop breastfeeding and give ds2 neocate as she thought it would be too restrictive and difficult for me.

It was annoying I must admit, we are so used to having dairy in everything but I soon got used to it and I felt MUCH happier about avoiding dairy and seeing if it helped [it did] rather than giving up bf before either of us were ready to. I'm really glad I stuck to it but I think the dietician thought I was being a bit of a martyr or something.

I know it wouldn't work for everyone and neocate works for lots of babies but I was happy to try anything and luckily for us it worked.

x-posts again. Trust your instincts. All emollients made dd1 worse. The only thing that worked was steroid cream and diet.

I have not even moisturised dd2. Her tiny patch of eczema gets a little bit of 1% hydrocortisone cream every so often. I haven't mentioned it to my GP because they would want me to start with Step 1 - moisturising, before going on to steroids. From past experience we would end up with widespread eczema and scratching, leading to a much worse problem.

Thanks SIS.

Do you know if the Egg proteins take as long to wash out of your system? I know CMP takes about 4 weeks but wondered if I added the other exclusions from today whether I would have to wait another 4 weeks to see if there were any results or whether it might be any sooner? Did you eat Soy or did you exclude that as well (was considering giving up wheat, eggs, nuts, seeds and fish for 4 weeks as frankly, dairy was the biggy with me)?

Gosh. Sorry about all the cross posting. So nice to be able to talk about it. The martyr thing is exactly right Guadalupe! Suspect some of my family/in-laws already think I am a bit hard core for breast feeding this long so am trying to be open minded. Have been keeping fairly quiet about giving up dairy as didn't want to appear that I was having to wear a hair shirt to continue breast feeding as I was such an amazingly dedicated person. Just a bit worried about giving bfing up completely and then not having anyway to comfort an itchy non sleeping baby as it is a useful tool to have in your arsenal.

I"ve noticed that my baby's flakey eczema patch on her cheek, which can vary in size from 5p to 10p, and flares up and weeps when I eat nuts. It doesn't altogether go away when I don't eat them, just looks less angry. Cold wind seems to make it work. Aqueous creams just hurt her like hell. Like you Spring, I don't want to take her to the GP about it. The only thing I've found that works is Lansinoh on her cheeks. Wish I'd know about it for child 3, who had bright red sore cheeks for the first three winters of her life. May not be a practical solution for all body eczema. Sounds like cutting out the things you are causing the problem is going to be a workable solution for you, so I would go with that if I were you.

I completly understand.

And I ended up bf ds until he was two, so as you can imagine the dietican thought I was bonkers. I think she half expected me to come into the clinic waving an incense ball or something.

It made sense to me, especially as he wasn't going to be able to have milk to keep on bf, and after a year or so he coped well with me introducing milk back into my diet even though he didn't have any initially. He is 3.5 now and has some butter in things and soya yog he has ordinary cakes/biscuits and so on but still no actual milk.

I know this is eaiser when it was obviously dairy though, if you have to keep trying everyting and nothing helps then that must get very frustrating. It's not always food either.

Wow - thegrandsophy, I am in about the exact same situation as you! DD is 7 months, she has bad eczema, and I've cut out dairy, eggs and gluten for a week now (her only comfirmed allergie so far).

But nothing has improved, and I'm getting a bit worried tbh. So it's sort of good to hear it takes 4 weeks to get all those allergens out of my system. I had been told to try for a couple weeks only, and if nothing improves, then give up BF...

Why did your consultant say the tests might not be conclusive if she is months???
Mine is 7 months and nobody mentioned that when we has the tests done (last week). The allergist was a bit old school if you ask me, he was all about steroids and aqueous creams and antihistamines daily (which made things worse - I can't trust him much now).

I was also thinking of slowly introducing Neocate this week...
Totally agree with losing the best way to comfort an itchy baby at night...!!

I'm seeing a dietitian this week, so I can let you know her advice about BF/diet if you want?

sorry - so many mistakes in my post above - unsettled itchy baby here

Nice to hear from someone in the same position (though obv sorry your daughter is not well too). The consultant I saw wasn't particularly old school and I do think that she is going to need steroids (to think in the early days that I was dabbing on 0.5% hydrocortisone - now I completely slather her in eumovate!). Part of the problem is that I now feel a bit selfish about wanting to try and continue breast feeding - if I am prolonging things for her by as much as 4 weeks or more. Just has always been how I imagined looking after her and feeding her - in fact was enjoying it more this time than last because realised that introducing a bottle of formula does not miraculously make your life easier. All confused. Think Rast testing often not concvlusive at best of times and complicated by my immunity while still ebfing. Think she just offered them because i started crying when she told me to stop bfing immed!

Hi. Am in similar position. 4 month old, has had eczema since 6 weeks which has progressively got worse and worse. Now angry and red all over body and limbs. Has been infected (staph) 3 times and we had a miserable couple of weeks with antibiotics which made him so upset. Have now been told it's likely to be a dairy allergy so cut out diary from my diet 2 weeks ago, and have now been told to cut out eggs and nuts too. Can't say the creams (Cetraben, Eumovate, Diprobath) have done any obvious good and no improvement in the 2 weeks I've been off dairy....

But... was told today that it could take as much as SIX weeks for dairy to clear the system (given that it has to clear mums system first AND THEN clear babies system). But doc was quite honest that this is all quite a new and under-researched area and they really really don't know.

I was also considering Neocate - am losing the will a bit on breastfeeding and feeling like I might be doing DS more harm than good. But a sensible friend has pointed out to me today that while he may or may not turn out to have a dairy allergy, he may well have other allergies. Eczema can be flared by so many different allergens, many of which are not diet related - pollution, chemicals etc etc. Stopping breastfeeding might help with the diet related ones, but continuing breastfeeding is likely to help with the non-diet related ones.

So I'm sticking with the breastfeeding for now.

I will keep a close eye on this thread. Am feeling very about it at the mo, so interested to see how others get on with it.

Hi Blairsbabe. After another very itchy sleepless night I am feeling a bit miserable too. Also feeling that might be doing more harm than good - things seem to be getting worse. At this stage it would also be good to hear about people who really have had their lives transformed by neocate to see if it is worth all the angst.

my little tot was born with pretty bad exema, i tryed everything!! and i mean everything!! one day when i was bathing her i realised id ran out of e45 for her arms and face (for exema) so just threw on a little bepathem (nappy rash cream)anything to keep it moist.. anyways in the morning it was almost gone! i kid you not! i use it on her all the time now and she has beautiful skin.. maybe worth a try??? x

read your origonal post. I cut all dairy and I mean all so I could continue breast feeding. DD had horrendous eczema from 6 days old. Her skin improved but it takes a while for dairy proteins to go from her system. It improved. Neocate is foul tasting unless they have improved it (12 yrs ago here). We went agains advice and when she was about 16months started her on goats milk. She had a mixed and varied diet all home cooked and her skin improved. It is only now at 12 (puberty) her skin is troublesome again.
Sorry if I have repeated stuff. I personally would not use artificial formula and we persevere bf if you are prepared to be really strict. HTH

Hi there,

I have a two-year old who has had eczema from birth - has been quite bad at times especially on back of neck, arms and legs. He was ebf to 6 mths, then carried on bf-ing to 19 months quite happily. His eczema did not seem to be related to my diet (in that flare ups did not coincide with particular foods in my diet) ie, was not noticeably worse when I ate egg, dairy, wheat or anything else. Didn't do an exclusion diet because of that. Tried all manner of moisturisers, emollients (Epaderm, Doublebase, Aveeno,), bath additives and the like plus the hydrocortisone. To be honest all of these seem to make it worse (I suspect an allergy to petroleum-based products and some fragrances). Best things have proved to be Aloe Vera gel from health food shop (gel not lotion) for cooling the itching, Hemp Oil (can get it in Sainsbury's) for moisturiser, plus Eumovate to get itching under control.

Am v. experienced bfer/peer supporter and would think there is no way bf is doing more harm than good - do not think you should give up and would not bother with the formula. There is a great poster on here, not sure if she is still around, who bf allergic twins for ages and basically ended up on a vegan diet - they had symptoms well beyond eczema though (blood in poo etc!). Might be worth searching the archives for inspiration.

HTH.

I breastfed ds until he was 2 and cut out his allergies from my diet (dairy/egg/nuts) so it's totally possible. He wouldn't contemplate Neocate or Pepti so didn't have much choice (I went back to work 3 days a week when he was 6 months as well). I'm not at all lentil-weavery and totally surprised myself, it's amazing what you do when you have to!

Something nobody has mentioned yet on this thread that might be worth saying - if you do end up having a child with allergies (and I hope you don't) it's great experience if you've already given the allergens up yourself. It gives you time to get used to label reading and also means when you're weaning you can safely give them food from your plate. I know that's a long way off now but it won't be too long before you have to start thinking about it.

If the consultant seriously thinks your dd might have a dairy allergy have they offered to test for it? If not I suggest you push for testing straight away.

Sorry, I should probaby add that giving up didn't help ds's eczema much unfortunately but I know quite a few mums who say it did make a difference to their dc's so it's worth a try.

Also if it is an allergy problem better have it diagnosed now before weaning than risk a reaction when introducing food. I rubbed a piece of cheese on ds's back which came up in a huge red weal so I was pretty convinced their was a problem when I approached his dermatologist.

don't have time to post in detail but: at 10 days you would only start to see improvements on dairy restrictions.

egg is as common an allergen as dairy.

dd1 had both and suffered a lot due to atopic eczema from 3months.

have you seen a consultant dematologist who can address the skin issue?

Hey just a thought - we are also having terrible nights at the moment and my DD's eczema has never been worse, could it be pollens in the air?

Dito Bilbomum.
My DD has severe food allergies, including CMP and Egg (amongst others) so obviously does not have these in her diet, yet still has terrible eczema, so it is not food related. I think perhaps you are beating yourself up uneccessarily that your milk is making her worse, this is more than likely not the case, and neocate is very unlikely to provide a miracle cure. That said, if IgE tests show her to have allergies, then cutting these from your diet will make a difference. I agree with other posters that this takes more than ten days, and was probably a few weeks for us to see a real change (though I stress, not to her eczema, but other symptoms). I disagree with your consultant that you will not get results at such a young age - my DD was tsted every 4 months from 10 weeks old. Yes, RAST testing (and skin prick testing) are unreliable but they are the most conclusive tests we have. Push for her to be seen by a specialist.

You are most certainly not doing more harm than good, and the benefits of breastfeeding a potentially allergic child are significant. In fact, current thinking is that exposing your baby to potential allergens through breastmilk may in fact prevent allergy. This is not to be sniffed at when you consider the family history that you state in your origional post. Neocate cannot provide this protection.