Formula and eczema?

[MoonUnitAlpha]

Does anyone know if formula can cause or exacerbate eczema in a baby?

Couldn't find the evidence right now but anecdotally yes. One of the main reasons I'm not ff despite dd being 7 months and me being back at work full time. I have dreadful eczema and hoping to keep it away from dd.

I doubt it! If eczema was food related you would sort it with a diet when you were older. If you have it, you have it. My DH sometimes gets athletes foot and he eats cheese. Oh, I had athsma and eczema as a baby and I was EBF for 6 months.

The causes of eczema are very complex and still not fully understood so to say formula causes eczema is incorrect. Could it trigger eczema in those already with the underlying condition, who knows, but to say it causes it is just wrong.

But do you think it would make eczema worse then?

No, I personally don't. If you were thinking of switching to ff, you could introduce one bottle of it a day and see how it goes. Consult your gp if you have concerns.

The GP was of the opinion that formula/dairy won't make any difference, but you never know how up to date their advice is

He was having one formula feed a day, and since I've gone back to EBF his skin has improved but that also coincided with using a hydrocortisone cream so don't know if the formula had an effect. Just wondering whether to try to re-introduce it.

if there is an underlying dairy intolerance then certainly formula could exacerbate it

jazziejeff there is actually evidence that in some cases eczema is linked to food intolerance, dairy being a common one

In my personal experience yes. I was FF and had horrendous baby/childhood excema which I mostly grew out of. Dad reckons it was the formula, but then anecdote doesn't equal fact

I have read that food allergies can exacerbate eczema but don't tend to cause it in and of themselves. However I think with a dairy intolerance that they would get exposed to it through your milk anyway unless you don't eat any dairy. Either way you can't tell anything if you started using hydrocortizone at the same time, that stuff is generally very effective.