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?

I think there is a possible link to beef and cows milk protein allergies. Not that if you are allergic to cows milk protein you will also be allergic to beef, but that you could be. I've read that too.

Nope I'm not edgar however my DH being affected by milk is important as the allergy/asthma etc... comes from my side of the family.

Gwyneth Paltrow barely eats, she's hardly representative of vegans!

Creature that is possible, but Edgar stated it as if it was a given that you had to avoid beef if allergic to milk.

this is very interesting reading, especially ' only about 0.5% of exclusively breast-fed infants show reproducible clinical reactions to CMP and most of these are mild to moderate. This might be related to the fact that the level of CMP present in breast milk is 100 000 times lower than that in cow?s milk.26 '

and 'Severe forms of CMPA (table 1) are very rare in exclusively breast-fed infants. The occasional cases that occur are usually severe atopic dermatitis with protein losses and failure to thrive'

mentions beef

mentions beef but small sample

When I did the total elimination diet, I cut out beef just in case.

If anyone is interested, Google's "scholarly articles" have something to say on the subject:

Lactating Women Restricting Milk Are Low on Select Nutrients

^Conclusions: Milk restriction compromised protein and nutrient intakes in lactating women who restricted milk to

I stated that because one of the papers mentioned elimination of beef as necessary, if I can't find it (and ten minutes on, i still haven't) I'm quite happy to concede the point.

x-posst

babybarrister if you are Asian living in Asia, then quite likely you are in a food culture that supports non-dairy diets quite well (though just try cutting out egg and chicken...not so easy)

My vegan friend in this country may - by being an exceptionally bad vegan - have given herself a blood disorder. i didn't see how that worked tbh but that was what the consultant said...

to be fair she really didn't do it very well (think full can of chick peas in place of a meal)

Cote read your whole article, you can't just cut out a source of nutrients without replacing. That's pretty obvious, hence why you should talk to a health professional.

YABU.

My 18 month old has cmpi and soya intolerance. She dropped from 75th to 5th centile after birth, would scream and couldn't sleep, her nappies were so acidic they would burn.

I am still angry that I accepted endless medication, horrible ranitidine (containing alcohol), thickeners and creams for her skin. Plus rounds of anti biotics for her infected looking eczema.

Finally a different GP at 8 weeks suggested I go dairy free, she didn't improve overnight, it takes time for the proteins to leave bm but after about 6 weeks she was a new child. Finally she was back to birth weight, had clear skin and was happy and content.

I did a lot of reading about vegan diets and am now completely happy that she gets all the nutrients she needs. I'm lucky that hubby is a chef and we don't eat processed food much so it was easy to cook everything with dairy free alternatives.

My reading led me to feel confident that we do not need cows milk in our diet, it's just easier to get children to drink milk.

What blood disorder? Anaemia? That would make sense on that sort of diet.

I wish, wish, wish someone had told me to cut dairy out of my diet (and later ds', when he started eating food). Dairy and soya made him so poorly for a whole year before we worked out what was wrong. The poor little boy had a miserable time.

painting rainbowskies those are severe symptoms that warrant investigation, fitting the bill as described by the articles.

what i think noble is getting at is that throwing 'give up dairy' as a catch-all solution for babies within the 'normal' range of baby problems isn't warranted.

what i am trying to get at is that because the jury is still out on how allergies/ intolerances develop, it is possible that is harmful advice or at least unfounded.

she wouldn't call it Anaemia however said her blood cells were the wrong shape. so anaemia then....

Of course children don't need cow's milk in their diet. You can breastfeed them yourself until they stop growing

Why are people so obsessed about humans drinking another animals milk.
As said upthread, it's weird.

"said her blood cells were the wrong shape"

Sickle cell anaemia? That is inherited. Not related to diet iirc.

Another study, if anyone's interested:

Maternal vegan diet causing a serious infantile neurological disorder due to vitamin B12 deficiency.

Kühne T, Bubl R, Baumgartner R.
Source
University Children's Hospital Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract

We present a 9-month-old exclusively breast-fed baby of a strict vegetarian mother who had excluded all animal proteins from her diet. The patient's symptoms included dystrophy, weakness, muscular atrophy, loss of tendon reflexes, psychomotor regression and haematological abnormalities. Biochemical investigations revealed severe methylmalonic aciduria and homocystinuria in the patient, slight methylmalonic aciduria in the mother and low concentrations of serum vitamin B12 in both patient and mother.

indeed. though it is quite a useful food stuff.

no individual food stuff is 'necessary', however plenty are useful and i don't think it wise to cut them out without good reason - reason founded on good quality research.

Babybarrister, I looked up the life expectancy table. It's true that the Japanese have the longest life expectancy. Do you know which country comes second?

Switzerland.

So much for your suggestion that it is lack of dairy that leads to longer life expectancy!