to worry about people being told to cut out dairy

[noblegiraffe]

I've noticed on here recently (or maybe I've only just noticed?) that if a mother posts about a fussy baby and she's breastfeeding, it is quite common for someone to suggest the mother try cutting dairy from her diet.

Now I'd have thought that cutting out dairy should be something done carefully and with dietary advice on how to compensate for it.

If you're cutting out dairy, that means you have to cut out nice things like cheese, milk in your cereal/tea, and if you're doing it thoroughly, things like chocolate that contain milk products. This sounds tedious and not very pleasant. It may even convince a mother to give up breastfeeding.

So I would have thought that cutting out dairy isn't something that should be taken lightly.

Also, babies are quite often fussy, and they quite often grow out of it without any intervention. A mother who has cut out dairy may attribute the improvement to her restricted diet and continue on it for months despite it being completely unnecessary and making no difference at all.

It's different to when people make other suggestions on here like 'it might be reflux' because people will need to see their GP before getting a prescription, and tips like propping up the cot are harmless even if it's not reflux. People can go ahead and cut out dairy without any health professional giving it the once-over.

So, AIBU to worry about this advice being bandied about? Or do people not attempt dietary restrictions on the say so of an Internet forum and I'm worrying about nothing?

Erm..... Says who now?

Its intolerances AND allergies by the way. Together they are even more common.

OH I thought intolerances were more common than allergies, not vice versa (or did I misread you?).

The NHS for one
www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Allergies/Pages/Foodallergy.aspx

Do you think the Swedish study ignored mik allergies in an attempt to make milk issues look rare?

X-post there.

I was just considering children, adults are more likely to have an intolerance or develop one in adulthood when previously ok. But a baby lr a toddler is more likely to have an allergy (and highly likely to grow out of it) and that link considered those of all ages.

Either way, YAstilBU. And your argument still has no substance. Purely because HCP's are so frighteningly uneducated about it. Otherwise I might semi agree with you.

I took my son to the doctors recently with an ear and chest infections. My son is so highly allergic he literally lives on 4-5 different foods (and even then I have to rotate them because too much and his body will start developing an allergy to it) and breast milk,an array of creams and all soaps at the age of 2, so suffice to say I have a far amount of experience on how allergies present themselves. When I mentioned this to the GP with regards to penicillin, as he'd not had it in a year and is allergic to far more things now than he was 12 months ok, i.e he could have developed a penicilin allergy - his answer was "Dont worry, he'll only develop a mild rash with his first reaction."

My jaw hit the flaw. Fuck. It was my first experience of dim witted, uneducated GP's having no idea about how allergies occur and how it can mean anaphylaxis and death in the first exposure.

He should never, ever tell any parent that, let alone one of a highly allergic child!

Sorry that was a bit garbled, I was being distracted.

2% of babies having an intolerance to cow's milk sounds like quite a lot to me.

cloverer it is worth noting that of that 1.9% 70% had family history of cows milk protein intolerance.

therefore if -

1. Northern European
2. BF ing
3. no family history

that's 0.57%

or about one in 500.

not really rare, but not nearly common enough for it to be a catch all diagnosis.

It is also unknown whether for the longer term it is better to cut out entirely, reduce, or simply not change dairy intake.

As babies may test positive for intolerance when small but not later, it may be that the tiny amounts of dairy received in BM are what creates tolerance.

this may be true for a wide range of food intolerances.

as i said, we don't know.

For an example:

my friend had a minor skin rash. she gave up dairy.

it got better. Then she had an ice cream a bit later - this time diahorreah ensued and the rash returned with avengeance.

cutting out the food created something with a more serious level of intolerance in that instance, or so it seems to her.

As far as I am concerned calf's are meant to have cows milk. I think the UK are too hyped up about having milk and dairy products when in fact you can get all the calcium needed from a good dairy free diet. We only need to look at other nations to see how few dairy products they consume.

My own 4 kids used to have milk but they all had eczema too. It went away when we stopped having dairy.

I think the opposite -

in the UK we have been eating/drinking dairy for tens of thousands of years. It is something we are adapted to eat.

in order to cut it out you have to avoid wide swathes of food that have milk or beef in one form or another (eg crisps have milk powder in)

if you lived in the far East it would probably be much much easier, and there the local population is not well adapted to eating dairy foods.

i think applying a global fact (humanity not being well adapted to eating milk products) to a minority population to which it does not apply is a bad use of statistics.

edgar how to you know the avoiding dairy caused that reaction? Sometimes the second exposure can be worse than the first. The first exposure might not even cause a reaction, I seem to recall someone's DS having milk and having a little rash around his cheek where the milk had touched and the next day she gave him some porridge with milk and he reacted more strongly, anaphylactic shock.

you don't know, it is an anecdotal example to flesh out what i am trying to get across,

ie that complete elimination of a food group could create a greater level of intolerance.

We have only started to consume a vast amounts of dairy since the 1960's.
And this coincides with an increase of processed food/ready meals/snacks etc. the majority of which also have dairy in them.

We haven't adapted to eat dairy. My DH has cut out dairy as well but he's not as strict as I am and sometimes will have a milkshake. He finds his hayfever is worse for a week after having dairy, his stomach plays up and he generally doesn't feel good for it.

Or simply her reaction was always going to be worse on the second exposure.

tenacious i hope you aren't claiming as a single family to be factually representative of all Northern Europeans?

It's not hard to cut dairy out - just eat unprocessed foods. I've done it twice - both of mine reacted badly to dairy and soya.

I don't think intolerances or even allergies and the body's reaction are that well understood.

I also don't think GPs and HVs etc have a good understanding of what the problems could be.

Both of my babies were terribly affected by silent reflux - not throwing up all day reflux, but heartburn. It took ages of me having to work out what the hell was wrong with them. Ds, my first, had acid coming out of nose one day at 12 weeks which gave me a clue. While all the while people around me told me that he was just being a newborn. I didn't know any newborns who stayed awake from 5pm until 3am screaming. And screaming. And screaming. When he got older I made the mistake of giving him a ready meal (baby food) which had traces of milk in, cue acid running out of his nose again.
Thank god I knew what to look for in dd.

If you've tried everything, giving up dairy for a couple of weeks is a drop in the ocean. If it doesn't work, then at least you can rule it out. People shouldn't suggest it lightly but for some it is a desperate measure.

You don't have to avoid beef if you're allergic to cow's milk

And it's not really that hard to avoid products containing milk.

One of the American papers i read insisted that it was necessary to eliminate beef ...see if i can find again...

My DS was so allergic to milk that we couldn't go in coffee shops where they were steaming milk, but has always been fine with beef. I've never seen anyone on the allergy boards avoiding beef if allergic to milk. Anecdotal I know, but there are a lot of parents of CMP allergic kids on there, and the consultant never mentioned avoiding beef.

Also not all crisps have milk powder in. I need my crisp fix, but have to avoid prawn cocktail, Thai sweet chilli and skips to name a few.

"some people live quite healthily and happily without any dairy at all - e.g., vegans"

Just like Gwyneth Paltrow, you mean? The woman managed to give herself early osteoporosis in her late-30.

She is not a vegan anymore. Wonder why.