baby tearing at her neck and chest.

[Astr0naut]

Yes, it is that dramatic.

I don't remember this with ds, but dd is awful at the moment for scratching her neck and chest.

Dd is 6 months old and we've just started weaning. Underneath her chin, down her neck and chest go red and seem lumpy when we have porridge for breakfast. She then scratches for ages - even after she's been cleaned up. She also sctraches at night.

I can't pinpoint what the trigger is.

• bib? She tears them off. *dribble? But I don't see her doing any dribbling, to be fair. *teeth? SHe got one last week, but I don't think it would make her scratch so much.

HAs anyone else had this with any of their dcs? Using calomine lotion (leftover from ds' chicken pox), sudocrem and E45 at the moment.

It's not the porridge is it? What happens if you give her something else for breakfast?

Is it just with porridge? Are you making it with cow's milk? My first thought is it sounds like an allergic response. Can you try making it with water only first and if that has the same reaction then use something else, eg. if it's oat-based porridge, try using a wheat-based or rice-based porridge and see whether that helps. If it IS an allergy or intolerance then at least that would help you pinpoint whether it's the milk or the grain.

Yes allergic response was the first thing came to my mind, too.

Has she been solely BF so far? If so I would also suspect cow's milk. It's a relatively common allergen.

I wondered about the porridge. I'm making it with water, but it's official Baby Porridge, so (just checked) has milk powder and formula milk powder in it.

She's just been at it again now, but hasn't 'eaten' anything since breakfast.

She's been ebf and I wondered for a good while whether she had silent reflux to begin with, although not sure whether that's an indication of milk allergy.

Will try toast for breakfast tomorrow - to see if that helps. If not, I may be back.

Thanks, people.

Yes I'd say acid reflux. Ds had thousand cows milk flared it up. Switch to normal porridge - its just oats. You do not need special baby stuff as she's 6 months.

Also be wary of bread - a lot of them have soya our nowadays which can also cause reactions similar to those caused by cows milk protein.

Thousand?? I meant this and

Bugger. Can people grow out of it?

Dh just remembered that when he gave her porridge for the first time she went bright red. He thought she was being mardy! Not looking good, is it?

If an intolerance, yes. If an allergy unlikely. I'd see a GP because if it is an allergy, the reactions could get worse so you need to be sure which it is. Ds has an intolerance and at 18 months could have the odd yoghurt and cheese. Now at 2.6 years he loves yogurts and can have cheese with only a bit of wind as a side effect.

You could hold off on dairy until she's nearer 1 and try again. Give calcium enriched milks and keep BF 2-3 times a day if you can. I BF ds until he was 2, partly for this reason!

Yes, children can grow out of cow's milk allergy, typically by age 3 or 4. And yes it is often confused with reflux!

Sounds very much like dd who has a cows milk intolerance

Yes you can grow out of allergies.

Sounds like a milk allergy to me. I'd get off to the gp for testing, and not give any more milk or milk containing products for now. Lots more help over on the allergy board if you want to visit.

So, tried two mornings of porridge and water. How on earth do Scottish people do that? Presumably they're allowed to add nice things.

Anyway. No reaction.

Tried dd with a cople of thin slivers of cheese tonight, just to see. THere's a reaction, but not as dramatic. Now to convince the GP that I'm not an over-protective mother and it's not exczema.

Try making it with oatly or kara milk (calcium enriched non dairy milks). They're not bad! Plus a bit of fruit like pear or blueberry goes down well with it too.

Dd was cow's milk intolerant, but she's always been fine with goats milk, it's easy to get hold of, so worth a try. You can also get goats yoghurt. She's 7 now and is fine with cows milk aslong as we don't overdo it.

I wouldn't try goats or sheeps milk. Same protein as cows milk, so if it's an allergy (and it sounds like it is), then she'd be allergic to that as well. Not worth the risk of trying it.

Good luck with the gp. You need to push for testing with the allergy consultant at our hospital, and avoid all dairy until the appointment comes through. In the meantime, allergy uk is a good resource, as is the Anaphylaxis Campaign, and of course the allergy board on here.

Re. allergy testing, the most commonly-used test for milk allergy is a RAST blood test, which is not very sensitive and typically will show negative unless there is a severe type-1 allergy. Your trial and error approach is probably all that is needed TBH.

Narmada, it really depends on your area. Our consultant uses both skin prick and rast, but mostly skin prick as its more accurate. No one would ever advise trial and error to determine true allergies, due to the risk of severe or anaphylactic reactions, so please don't do that.

Further down the line, a formal diagnosis will help with a prescription for hypoallergenic formula, to use in cooking with solids, or to supplement or replace bm until age 2. It will also result in help from the hospital dietician on how to ensure that eliminating an entire food group is done in a sensible way. I would definitely recommend that the op pushes for all this via her gp.

I wasn't suggesting that all parents who suspect an allergy should go via trial and error, god no! Probably didn't express myself very well.

What I meant was, don't be disappointed if you get to the hospital and they don't do any allergy testing. They may just take your word for it that your baby has a cow's milk allergy based on her symptoms after exposure. And equally, don't be flummoxed if they do do testing and it returns a negative. It is still possible to have significant allergy issues with negative results. DS had negative RAST but a significant milk allergy.

Consultants are very important, agreed, because they will basically ask your GP to issue prescriptions for specialist formula if needed; without these it can be difficult to extract scripts as the products are expensive. A referral to a dietician can be helpful likewise.

DD1 used to itch badly when she first had cows milk - she was EBF for 6 months before weaning & started drinking full fat cow at 12 months.

I switched to goats milk & the itching stopped. She still had cows cheese, yoghurts etc and was fine, it just when she drank "sweet" milk, as she calls it, she itched. Now she is 4.5 & she seems to tolerate cows milk a lot better - she still mainly has goats milk though.

Thanks for all the advice and suggestions. I was going to talk to my health visitor tomorrow, as it's weigh-in day.

Unfortunately dd has caught chicken pox from her brother, so this complicates matters somewhat. It's probably wishful thinking to hope that it was the onset of the pox that caused reactions, so I'll push the HV to get things going. I have no confidence in my gp, sadly, as his ususal solution is to print things off the internet, then hand them to me.