CMP allergy in 6 month old BF baby - should I give it up too?

[abigboydidit]

Hi - have posted this in allergies too so hope it isn't too cheeky to copy and paste here as I know lots of you have BF expertise I would really appreciate.

Last week my 6 month old DS reacted badly to his first taste of cow's milk (cooked, in porridge) & we've now been referred to an allergy clinic after much fighting with my eejit GP. Until weaning he was EBF and I intend to continue to BF for the next 6 months at least. I consume a fair amount of dairy products (milk in tea, yoghurts, chocolate etc) & DS has never shown any reaction to this that I have picked up on. He has never had reflux or problems with wind & has always been a very well settled and contented baby. He had some mild problems with his skin, which was diagnosed as seborrhoeic dermatitis. It has cleared up using an anti-fungal cream & although he still has some patches of dry skin it doesn't seem to be a problem anymore.

So! The big question is, should I give up dairy too? Allergy UK said I should but both the paediatric dietician from the allergy clinic I spoke to and my BF peer support worker said I didn't need to. I'd really appreciate any wisdom or experience from people who have tried. I suppose my thinking is that if it will help him get over the allergy quicker, am willing to give anything a go but I would find it a hugely depressing daunting prospect as I can't bear the taste of soya/rice/oat milk.

well i wouldn't, given that he hasn't reacted to it via your milk at all.

obviously if you see any change in that then i would re-think. but if it's all working right now i can't see any reason to stop tbh!

I bf my cmp allergic ds until he was 2.3 and I didn't give up dairy. Was just about to say my continuing to have cows milk in my diet had no effect but have just realised that he has not had any skin problems (had eczema) or asthma episodes for ages... he is just 3. So perhaps they it was my milk intake that caused the reactions. Argh!!!

Going out slightly on a limb here, but I think with reactions to BM it is the sugars (lactose) that cause the problems where as with the allergic reaction to direct cows milk its the protein......

So I dont believe there is any problem BFing a baby thats allergic to the protein as that doesnt come through in the BM.

My sister's baby is still being BF after a full on anaphylaxis experience with cows milk.

stottie thats more likely just down to growing out of it isnt it?

Got it the wrong way round entropy :)

Very, very rare for lactose in breastmilk to cause a problem - almost unknown in fact, except in 'secondary LI' after the baby has had a serious gastric illness.

CMP allergy/intolerance which shows up in breastfeeding is not exactly common, but it's far more likely than LI. A very few bf mothers do need to eliminate it in order to deal with it.

Not in this case though, I wouldn''t have thought - he's already gone 6 mths without problems. Elimination won't speed up anything - at least that's my understanding. Check with the docs.

Some people don't leak cows' milk protein into their blood stream from their gut (that is the only way you can get CMP into breast milk by it being present in your blood).

Apparently, if the gut is inflamed it can become more permeable to proteins so the theory goes that if the mother is slightly intolerant to CMP (or perhaps another food might be triggering it) her gut will be inflamed and more 'leaky' letting CMP into her blood stream and then into her breast milk which then may trigger a reaction in the child.

You could try looking into 'Leaky Gut Syndrome' for more info.

truth!!!!! omg that makes so much sense!

sorry to hijack OP. but my second and third babies are both intolerant to dairy and I DID have to cut it out of my diet.

prior to having kids I had a lot of symptoms of a food intolerance, but noth9ing serious enough to make me ever try and pinpoint it. since giving up dairy for ds2 I have not been able to return to eating it full time. it makes me really ill.
i can have it occassionally, but not every day.

so it makes sense that maybe I had an intolerance to milk, and that's what meant that I passed the proteins through into my milk to ds2 and ds3! amazing,

interestingly i was the same hideous nightmare baby that ds2 was, only back then my mother had never even heard of intolerances etc so they just assumed I was a miserable little sod lol... all falling into place now

I have read it takes 4 generations to ebf to 6m to reverse the changes of early introduction of CMP proteins (so 'they' have theorised) but as you have all boys it ends with them (unless they have children with a 'leaky' woman).

There is a IBCLC who has done a lot of work in this field and I will try to hunt out the info later but I am already late for the school run so had better get amove on!!

i shall warn them! and screen potential life partners! lol

Gah - I suppose thats what you get from repeating what your slightly ditzy (in a good way) sister tells you on the phone while babies are screaming at both ends...

ah well - what would you do, Tiktok, without idiots like me to correct?

Wow - thanks that's really interesting (plus any theory that means I don't have to give up chocolate so close to Chrimbo gets the thumbs up in my book)

A bit of judicious googling and ta-dah!

Jennifer Tow is the IBCLC in question and here is her blog on it - very fascinating reading.

Ah not what I meant to link to. Hmm need more googling practice

I've found the theory but I can't link to it as it was on a private email group (one of the rules is that we don't copy emails and post them elsewhere). Too much information swilling about in my brain me-thinks.