Breast feeding and eczema concern

[VickityBoo]

I have what can be awful eczema at times. I'm 30 so never grew out of it. My family have a history as do my partners family.

Our daughter age 3 has severe eczema. I'm now pregnant with our second and pondering the breastfeeding thing. I was such an advocate with our first but she has so many allergies plus the eczema do it didn't help there.

Could it be possible that breastfeeding actually caused the eczema and allergies as it was passed from me? Could the advice that bf helps prevent eczema be for women not suffering from it themselves?

It's a tricky one isn't it. I'm breastfeeding my son and he has eczema (as did I as a breastfeed baby). He has also had dreadful D&V bug |(breastfeed babies aren't meant to get them either)
The thing i keep reminding myself is that breastfeeding reduces the risk. A bit like taking the pill reduces the risk of pregnancy.
I haven't got more add then that sorry!

It's not that bfing prevents bfing but that if you take a population of humans that have ebf and another that have formula fed, the bf humans will have less eczema than the ones formula fed (this holds true for lots of risks of not bfing).

How that then plays out for an individual is impossible to say. Bfing is not a magic bullet otherwise how come there have been illnesses that have effected babies/young children for millennia (even excluding times/places when bfing was proscribed/limited)?

There are some theories floating about that if you are allergic/intolerant of particular foods (e.g. they trigger eczema flare ups) they may also get into your bm due to the gut also being inflamed (and therefore a bit 'leaky'), this BM with added extra may also affect your child possibly then triggering an eczema flare up or other reaction. There shouldn't really be any foreign proteins in BM as there shouldn't be any foreign proteins in your blood......

I think if those theories stand up to scientific scrutiny then the answer is to cut the offending food out of your diet and carry on bfing (or start bfing if cutting out the food whilst pg) not to not bf given what we know about the other risks of not bfing.

I should say that even if bfing did nothing for eczema, I am still bf my next baby as I don't feel that ffing would prevent it either but as I know the risks of not bfing, bfing is the safest option for me (others may make different choices though and that's fine).

My most exclusively bf baby* has the most severe eczema and asthma out of my 3 though was the sickest baby and the only one to have caught RSV.

She is currently wearing compression garments 24/7 and on a wheat free diet to limit her flare ups but even a simple cold causes flares and distress. Now if she eats wheat, she screams for hours and is impossible to console as she throws herself around the bed howling in pain until the small hours of the morning (night before last after she had 3 iced gems [I forgot they had biscuit bases ).

*DD3 was ebf for 6m, DD2 ebf for 23w [bar 40mls of formula at 2w that was vomited up] and DD1 was ebf between 8-25w [mix fed mostly formula prior to that]. DD1 bf for 3.6y, DD2 4.2y+ and DD3 2.4y+.

As other's have said BF alone woun't prevent eczema in a child who already has a strong gentic link for it. But there are many other health reasions to BF for not just for your baby but for you as well. Reduced risk of breast and ovarion cancer just to name a few.

Breastfeeding doesn't prevent children getting ill but does reduce the chance's of them needing medical treatment such as antibiotics and hospitlisation.

Remeber breast feeding is the norme and formal increase the risk.