Help! Doctor says my 7 wk old might be allergic to breast milk.

[Tonka76]

Has anyone else experienced this? My DS has had severe rashes on his face which was diagnosed, after seeing specialist, as infected eczema but he's been on 3 lots of antibiotics and every time they end the spots start to appear again. I've just been to the doctors as his ears are now bad and she said it's all related and that he could be allergic to my milk. So not only does this poor little boy have painful ears and an incredibly itchy face and head... I now feel that every time I feed him I'm just making it worse.
We're off to see the dermatologist again on Wednesday so hopefully they can refer us for allergy testing but just wandered if anyone had experienced anything similar or had any thoughts on whether I should rush out and buy some formula.
I'm a big believer in breastfeeding and would be gutted if I had to stop so early on but obviously want whats ultimately best for him.

Any advice/thoughts would be much appreciated!

I doubt he's allergic to your milk. Do you eat dairy products? More likely he's allergic to cow's milk protein.

Some babies can be sensitive to bovine protein or dairy in the mums diet. Changing to a standard formula in that situation could be disasterous, as they are cows milk based!

I would wait and see what the tests show. You could either try excluding things from your diet, or try a hypoallergenic infant milk which would be prescribed if it was needed.

Generally, for babies with allergies/intolerances, BF will be much better for both of you, his symptoms sound uncomfortable but unlikely to be dangerous so it would be a shame to miss out on the benefits of BF just in case

What an ignorant scaremongering doctor.
It's something in your diet that is affecting baby.

Just change your diet and baby will be fine.

Contact La Leche or Breastfeeding council for help.

This might be useful for breastfed babies with food allergies

Don't rush out and buy formula. If your baby is allergic to something in your milk, the same thing will be in formula and you will also be adding some other potential problems to the mix.

The likely cause - if it is your milk, is either lactose or milk protein. You can stop eating all dairy products for a while to see if that stops the problem (but there is dairy in a lot more ready made food than you would think, so you would need to be careful with your shopping). It takes a couple of weeks for the dairy to leave your system and then your baby's. I did this with DS2 and his symtoms stopped within a week. I was able to start eating dairy again when he was 1.

If allergy tests show he is affected and you want to give formula for whatever reason, he will be prescribed a specialist product. Don't be tempted to buy soya formula in the meatime because it is really not good for little boys especially, and it can rot teeth before they even come through because it is so high in sugar.

What your son has is actually quite common, so don't be frightened by the GP saying he is allergic to your milk (NOT very helpful). You will almost certainly be able to carry on feeding if you want to.

Agree wqith TLP; after not feeding dss long term by cutting out casein from my diet I managed to BF ds4 for- well, a long time. yearas.

Soya milk is not good enough (although the ones now are less sugary than they were thank goodness- as ds1 lost pretty much all his children's teeth).

It's a challenge to move on to a casein free diet (4 in this hoouse are on one, including me) but doable. Get recommendations from people on here (Alpro yoghurts, ooh an Swedish glace ice cream- even milk loving dh adores it) and there is so much available now comapred to the days when we started on it; lovely Df yoghurts in plain for curries, cakes, little cartons of milkshakes...... yum.
The only thing I never yet found was something for tea or coffee; I find rice milk on my cereal helps and coffee is drunk black. Junior Soya Milk has higher calcium levels so useful for a BF mum I suspect and bad at all on cereal etc.

Wow can't believe the doctor said that :(

It's well known that babies can be sensitive to what the mother eats - but that is NOT the same as being allergic to your actual milk.

Even different babies to the same woman are different - DD was totally unaffected by whatever I ate, whereas when DS was little I couldn't have caffeine as it seemed to affect him.

I have also been told to think about my diet now as he's 19m and suffering very bad eczema, it's just another thing to consider.

I know some mums who couldn't even eat onion or normal peppers in any form because it affected baby.

There are new NICE guidelines on testing children for food allergies: here. Exclusion diets are likely to be recommended for eczema type symptoms - you as well as your DS would need to go on the diet.

I'd agree with the posters above - the allergy would be to something you're eating transmitted via your milk, and dairy is often a culprit, although other food allergies work this way too.

Continuing to bf whilst excluding any allergens as necessary will give your DS the best protection he can get against this type of illness (and others, of course).

Although it IS unusual for a baby to be allergic to his mother's milk, it does happen. I have a friend whose baby was. She completely eliminated all lactose, wheat and gluten from her diet and her daughter still screamed with pain for many hours of the day. She only improved when put on goats' milk formula- she was allergic to soy. However, the baby's symptoms were completely different from yours, OP, so hopefully this won't be the outcome for you.

firstly cut dairy out of your diet, also anything spicy. If he has been on 3 lots of anti biotics this is likely to have messed up his internal gut flora that establishes in the first few weeks. Breast feeding helps goon gut flora to establish. (my ds was given anti biotics, or rather I was that weren't safe for breast feeding, got very ill and rash, doctors are pretty unknowledgeable in general on anti biotics for babies ime)

Exzcema is caused by dairy products anyway so stopping bfing is the worst thing you could do. allergic to breast milk is absolutely the most unlikely thing.

eat plenty of natural pro biotic yoghurt yourself, and go to a good health food shop and get some bifida bacterium infantis powder, take it yourself - half teaspoon a day and it will pass through your breast milk to heal your poor baby's gut.

book suggestion- digestive wellness in children.

I have become an expert on this since my ds was given these anti bioitcs, and as a result suffered dairy intolerance

Oatly oat milk with added calcium - cheapest is from asda - is very good milk substitute by the way.

also most ear infections are caused by dairy intolerance / allegy

How can she cut out dairy and eat yoghurt kalo?

oh yes soz, but lots of these dairy free diets say yoghurt can be okay for some. Me and my ds have yoghurt but not milk, cheese etc. some say cream is ok too and even parmesan. its trial and error depending on the sensitivity.

soya yog is an option, as is goats milk but I don't like it

I am avoiding dairy products because my DD was really suffering with ichy and weepy eczema on her face and other places. It came on when she was about 12 weeks old - we spent a month of trying different creams etc to no avail and then i tried avoiding dairy and eggs. The eczema is now lots better - gone, really and we are in the process of getting an official diagnosis from the docs.

Sometimes i find the diet restrictions difficult, but its really only junk food and puddings in restaurants that i can't have, which isn't really i bad thing. When i cook i substitute goats milk (full fat = lovely) or unsweetened soya milk, and we now buy vitalite marg. I use vegan recipes for biscuits and cakes (I've found some easy gooey chocolate cakes that i'm going to be baking for ever). I sometimes buy sheep cheese for sandwiches but have had to eat lots less cheese.

If I'm not around she has soya formula, which you can get from the supermarket.

She is 5 months now. I have been doing it for a month and I keep in the back of my mind that I could give up breast feeding but a chocolate binge isn't really that important to me.

Its not that bad. I would really recommend giving it a go for a few weeks to see if it helps.
It took a few weeks for the eczema to go, I think because i didn't give up eggs for the first week or so, and then i was drinking lacto-free milk (through not understanding what I was trying to avoid).

I ca't really offer any proper advice, just my experience. Everything i know I have learned from the internet (try the allergies board under health on MN). We are still waiting for our first dermatology appointment.

sainsbury's sell 'pure' its a dairy free margerine spread

thank you all! I think i will do the dairy elimination. I know it works when i've done it for myself if my skins ever got bad before so worth a try.
I did ask the doctor if it was likely that it was something in my diet as opposed to the breast milk itself and she said that was rarely the case!
I've started his ear drops now so hopefully they'll kick in as it's clear (from the loud screaming in my ear) that it's pretty painful. Any other ideas what you can do for pain? they're too young for Calpol.
Thank you for all your advise though... it's made me feel a bit better.
ps. What's Casein PeachyAndTheArghoNauts? ... not sure I know what that is!

casein is the milk protein in milk as oppose to lactose.

that doctor does not know what she is talking about. cow milk intolerance is massively common in many babies. allergy to breastmilk is almost unheard of.

prescribing 3 doses of anti biotics to a 7 week old is very rare these days. everybody is questioning the use of anti biotics now, and it is well known they can cause allergies and damage intestinal gut flora.

I would get a new GP, sounds dangerously ill-infomed. Fancy suggesting (if not directly) that you use formula - like everyone else has said, this is very probably going to make it work. It's estimated that anywhere between 5-10% of babies are cow's milk intolerant or allergic. The GP needs to know that in babies with cow's milk intolerance can develop anaemia, bleeding and eosinophilic esophagitis (inflammation of food pipe due to an immune reaction). How is that preferable to breastmilk??!!!

make it worse.

Tonka I have PMed you :)

ds had his jabs just before he was 8 wks and gp told us to give half the advised dose of calpol. I'd ask another gp (yours sounds useless) if this could be an option.

Your GP is an idiot! Cow's milk protein intolerance is the most common food allergy in babies/children - an allergy to breastmilk itself is incredibly rare.