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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Secondary intolerance??

1 reply

bonbonpixie · 24/08/2012 23:22

DD is 14 weeks and ebf. She has gone from having two huge bowel movements per week (we were scraping it from the walls - literally!) to having lots of watery stool almost in every nappy (so approx 6 per day) and some of these were green. The colour is back to normal now and she now goes only once a day after two weeks. However I wondered if she could now have a secondary intolerance to something in my milk? Her stool is still pretty loose and she will cry about 30 minutes after feeding (only during the day though, at night with dream feeds she will sleep 9 hours+ at once) she has also decreased her feeds going from maybe 10-12 during the day (she is feeding on demand) to 6-7 and has also decreased in the time spent feeding. Another odd thing is that whilst feeding she has been making faces sort of like she doesn't like the taste and generally fussing, lots of coming off and back on etc. Her mouth has been checked for thrush and I'm in no pain, except that for the last little while she has been nipping me just beside the nipple. She is still gaining weight -following the 25th percentile.
It all sounds so vague I know, but I just feel that something is not right.
She has been on ranitidine since 8 weeks old for reflux. There was a lot of bringing up milk that has now been resolved, so id quite like to start weaning her of the medication soon. However the loose stool is even more perplexing as I thought ranitidine sort of bunged them up a bit??
Has anyone had anything similar happen at this age? Would be very grateful of some advice - as there is far far too much crying going on here!

OP posts:
OnlyNiceSwearing · 25/08/2012 00:16

Hi bonbon, my dd3 is nearly five months and she had an awful time of it at the beginning. She screamed and had runny poohs all the time (we call them screaming poohs)and was on ranitidine for reflux. She has never fed without fidgeting and face pulling, only now she is much better although still has the odd funny feed.

My doctor suggested when she was a few weeks old that the reflux could be caused by a milk protein intolerance. Do you know ranitidine is also very weight sensitive? It worked for a bit with dd3 then had to keep having the dosage increased,eventually the doctor made his suggestion, based on green pooh, screaming, diarrhoea etc that the dairy could be the cause.

Green pooh can also be a sign of too much foremilk or oversupply but I don't know if this would be a problem at 14 weeks really as I don't know about you but my supply was established by then and dd finishes 1 side completely before the next, most of the time 1 side is enough for her per feed. I ended up cutting dairy out of my diet for a few weeks and we haven't looked back since! No screaming poohs and a very happy baby. She has come off ranitidine and the reflux has only returned when I try dairy for the odd day each month to see if she is starting to build tolerance to it. I hope it isn't going to be an allergy as they can suffer with it for the long term.

She still suffers from diaorrhoea but have since been referred to a specialist and apparently as long as dd is feeding, putting on weight this is ok. She did say soya intolerance can cause these symptoms too but I had cut that out anyway.

The other reason for explosive runny, green pooh can also be a lactose intolerance, caused temporarily by a tummy bug or illness this is quite a common occurrence or being born with it which is rare the doc said. She thinks this maybe dd3's last issue. I can't get rid of lactose in my breastmilk as it is naturally there as a sugar. There is an lactase enzyme you can buy to give as drops before each feed (coleif) which breaks down the lactose to a manageable form.I did try it at the beginning, it's expensive and at the time I didn't really notice any improvement but I may try this again now dd's other symptoms have gone. It's like peeling layers away for us to get to the bottom of all this.

There is a difference between being lactose intolerant to having a milk intolerance ( sorry if you already know this!) if lactose intolerant you can have dairy but only lactose free products, if milk intolerant all dairy has to be eliminated from your diet as its the protein which aggravates and this cannot be taken out unlike the lactose.

I wouldn't worry about the decrease in feeding time, dd3 is done in 7 minutes now! She has also naturally cut down from 10/12 feeds to about 6/7. Not brilliant at sleeping longer than 5 hours yet but quick to go back to sleep and only 1/2 night wakings for us now. Lovely that you get a long sleep!! I hope all this helps, I am right in the middle of it all so please ask if you have any more questions! You could just cut dairy out for two weeks to see if anything changes. I take a good strength calcium, vitamin d and vitamin b supplement to make sure me and dd get the things we miss from the dairy. And of course sometimes we never find out what upsets their little tummies,there may be nothing to do to help but usually as their digestive systems mature things fall in to place. Good luck!

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