Eczema in babies - condition or symptom?

[shmoores]

Not sure where to turn in regards to this so thought I’d make an account here to see if anyone could give me any sort of informed advice. I’m concerned I’m being misadvised regarding my four month old son. I feel like his eczema is a symptom not the condition. He is exclusively breastfed, I have tried to introduce some formula but he appears to react in my opinion (bad flare ups of eczema and mucus poos) I also feel he reacts, although milder, to dairy through my breast milk. I’ve been informed by a consultant that this is not a possibility, contrary to everything I’ve read online and huge communities regarding CMPA whilst breastfeeding, that this is impossible and could not be the case. I did cut out dairy for two weeks before being told it was impossible to be the cause and to resume a normal diet, which in good faith I did but months later and I am just convinced that something isn’t right. I wish I’d stuck it out longer now, but without any help from the paediatricians I stopped. I can manage his eczema with steroid creams, daily baths and a whole lot of ointment but do I want to if it could go together by itself with further investigation of what could be causing it? Or is my consultant right and the eczema is the condition, and not a symptom? I will upload some photos below and what I was told.

Warning poo pic below but nappies are explosive and almost always go up his back on to clothes with large lumps of mucus.

My baby has CMPA and was breastfed. It took a lot longer than 2 weeks for the symptoms to clear after I went dairy free.

I was told the same by our GP about it not being possible whilst breastfeeding but I pushed for further check and they made a referral to our local children's hospital and they confirmed the allergy. We've now moved over to formula and he's on Neocate as he also reacted to Nutrimegen as that's made with broken down cows milk protein (basically what they'd be reacting to in breastmilk)

At no point did the paediatrician or feeding nurses we saw say it wasn't possible whilst breastfeeding to have the allergy.

for one of my dc in hindsight their eczema as baby was a sympom of hayfever.

have a look at the pollen forecast for your area and make notes.
dc also had what's called 'toddlerhea' at the same time.
both symptoms are kept in check with antihistamines.

Thank you - would you say these pictures reflect what CMPA presented like in your child? Unfortunately I pushed to be referred to the hospital and the paediatrician rejected the referral and sent the above information instead so I'm at a loss. I think I need to go back to the health visitor and see what else can be done.

That's interesting, thank you

Yes definitely very much like that. I went dairy free and things started to improve around the 3 week mark in terms of frequency and a lot longer for the consistency to improve but from what I read it takes a while for the protein to be out both yours and the baby's system and then for them to recover from the irritation it's caused.

I decided myself to go dairy free to push it with the GP and then accidentally had dairy and my son had a reaction.

His eczema took a lot longer to improve but I've been using a lot of the Child's Farm Oat Range and that seems to have helped too.

Sorry I've just actually read the points sent to you as well. It's insane the differing information given to people isn't it!

I was told my our health visitor that cradle cap products would dry his skin even further so to not use them for eczema, that's why we started using the moisturiser and just dousing him in it every chance we got and it helped so much.

If you're happy to stay breastfeeding Id try cutting out dairy but you'd need to take supplements for calcium. The issue is if you want to change to formula, it sounds like you'd have a fight on your hands to get a prescription. I just found it so hard to be dairy free myself.

I had a breast fed CMPA baby and his skin was awful!

I was back and forth to the GP about his eczema and CMPA wasn’t suggested to me until my fifth visit.

I was told to eliminate dairy from my diet and I was advised it would take up to 6 weeks to see a marked improvement.

Thankfully it worked!

He could start to tolerate milk through my breast milk when he was about 15 months old, but he couldn’t have it directly until he was about 2.5 years old.

My dd developed eczema at 3 months old and was referred to allergy consultant who said it was not an allergy and was “just eczema” and that we’d have a rocky road ahead. Three months later she had blood tests by same consultant and dd was diagnosed with severe dairy/egg allergies. I continued to breastfeed but ditched dairy and egg. It did take about 4 weeks to see a big difference but it was also massively obvious if I’d accidentally consumed dairy or egg as her skin would flare up immediately.

My son (and I) had terrible "eczema." Turns out we were actually deficient in iron, zinc, and niacin. We started on supplements and the rashes resolved in a few weeks.

Keep in mind we spent months with debilitating rashes that failed to respond to all conventional medicines (topical steroids, oral steroids, antibiotics, anti-virals, allergen avoidance, elimination diets, etc.).

Maybe consider having your and your sons vitamin levels checked - particularly the b vitamins, iron, and zinc. Best of luck and feel better soon!