Baby and mum told to go dairy free for 6 months without allergy diagnosis

[Kl1234]

I've just been to the GP for baby's suspected CMPA (delayed/non-IgE) and I've been told for us to both stay on a milk free diet for 6 months before we can have a paediatric referral. No confirmation that it is actually CMPA before we do this for almost her whole life over again (she's 8 months). No dietary advice given for me or her just off you go come back later. Is this the same for everyone? This feels dangerous

All I'm saying is that they are doing the skin prick tests on her to see if theyre either ige or non ige

If you want to move on to formula you still can-docs can prescribe a milk free formula although it can take a while for babies to get used to as it's not so tasty! X

There are formulas available. If they are reacting to dairy through breastmilk its likely they will need an amino acid formula rather than an extensively hydrolysed formula. Its likely that the gp will prescribe an extensively hydrolysed formula first. Common extensively hydrolysed formulas are pepti and nutramigen and amino acid formulas are neocate, alfamino and puramino (this contains soya). It can be tricky to get an older baby on to the formulas due to the foul taste but I managed to get bottle refusing 10 month old onto alfamino. She had been having it in food since 8 months

You would usually do a removal of a food for 4-6 weeks and then reintroduce to see if symptoms return. If they return you would then remove the food for 6 months or until they are 12 months, which ever is later, and then start gradual reintroductions using the milk ladder. This starts we small amounts of baked milk working up to full portions then you move up to purer forms of dairy.

Your HV is possibly able to refer to dieticians with simple allergies you probably won't get much support maybe some initial input on alternative sources of dairy followed by an information leaflet on the milk ladder. My daughter has complex allergies and we don't get a lot of input to be honest. We mostly figure it out ourselves then periodically have appointments where we are told to keep going as we are. My daughter is under paeds but mostly for her reflux and her allergies only get brought up in terms of what introductions we have tried.

There are a few cmpa Facebook groups which are helpful. There's a regular one and a breastfeeding one and I found a lot of helpful parents on there who had been through it already and I'm in a local support group for parents of children with allergies.