CMPA/Soy allergy advice - should I stop breastfeeding?

[MMJD]

Hello,

Would love some advice from other mums managing CMPA and breastfeeding. My LO is nearly 5 months and quite quickly we pinned down that she has CMPA along with a soy allergy. Her older sister had this too but it presented slightly differently, as eczema and vomiting, whereas my 5 month old is passing blood. We’ve been back and forth with doctors and of course I’ve completely removed dairy and soy from my diet (have done this for the past 3 months at least). Doctors were all very supportive of the fact that she is healthy, gaining weight consistently but clearly presents as having this allergy. We once had to go into hospital as she passed a clot of mucusey blood, they wanted to rule out anything more severe and thankfully decided it was the allergy as in general she is a very calm and content baby.

Over the past few days we have again seen some small streaks of blood in her poo, this has happened a few times since removing dairy and soy from my diet. She has got a slight viral infection but I’m wondering, when should I seriously consider switching to formula, like Nutramigen? I love breastfeeding but find the paranoia over my diet and constant worry that she might pass blood quite consuming. As previously mentioned, my eldest had CMPA and I managed to breastfeed until she was about 9 months and then she was completely on Nutramigen. This was 3 years ago and I’m finding this time around it is SO much harder to avoid soy! It’s in so many dairy alternatives and used as a cooking oil in many restaurants.

Does anyone have any experience with this or advice? I want to do what is best for my LO, I’m finding the worrying about what I’m consuming and potentially passing to her very stressful.

Thanks x

I think you’d have a hard time trying to get her to take nutramigen now. One of mine also developed an egg allergy at 8 months in addition to the cmpa and soya allergies. So it might be something else in your diet.

I also had to cut soy and dairy for my DD. I was part of a cmpa support group- tbh I really struggled as most dairy free options when eating out seem to contain soy. Even basic supermarket bread is full of soy.

However the formula mums on the support group all seemed to be having nightmares having to keep swapping formulas, acclimatising babies to the new one but not knowing if the upset tummy was from the change or allergy related. If you're at 5 months then you've done all the hard work, I'd just continue for the year where you can swap her onto oat milk or do the milk ladder.

You could always ask for a prescription and see if she takes to it.

I had to cut it out too. My paed consultant said I should cut all beef products too, as that can be an issue.

The formula apparently tastes really awful, so it might be very hard for them to switch.

They do often grow out of it over time, my ds (who had it so severely he had to be hospitalised) grew out of it by 10 months.

We managed to get her sister onto Nutramigen by mixing it a little at a time, but it was tricky you’re right.

oh wow, hadn’t considered an egg allergy. Did you do a food diary to work that out?

Yes I did and some googling. Neither of mine would take it in any quantity despite great efforts.
I did find the ready made baby food really good as so much of it is dairy, soya and egg free

Breast milk has a lot of beneficial nutrients in it that things like nutramigen don’t have.

I used to remind myself that our daughter was doing better overall with my milk and occasional issues than only getting an entirely synthetic nutrition source.

Nothing is perfect, but if you’re keen to keep feeding then that realism might be worth keeping in mind.

(also eat out at Wetherspoons when you want an easy life - their app filters for the menu are great).

(and try soya lechitins deliberately sometime - they’re not the soya protein and if you’re ok with them then it gives a lot more options).

I breastfed my CMPA son for five months and cut all soy and dairy as you have. But it wasn't a good experience and I'm sure other things I was eating or drinking also had an effect. I weaned him onto nutramigen AA at the point you are now. And did jt incrementally with breatmilk feeds being 75% mixed with the Nutramigen AA and each week changed it by 25%. Eventually he was on it and I stopped feeding then. And it made a huge difference. We had him on omeprazole for some of that time which I regret now as it affects their microbiome. He stayed on the formula until he was three. Obvs post weaning - and he was dairy and gluten intolerant. Both of which he has now. But never cheese or yoghurt. It was horrific and very very stressful and I would say that you've done an amazing job and now is a good time to wean into formula if you can. Or want to. I lost so much weight and it affected my mental health badly.

He's a teenager now and still somewhat dairy intolerant. You know your child and yourself and I would say that you've done your best in BF and I would follow your instinct.

You need to start a detailed food diary it's likely that there are multiple allergies at play.
It's a hard choice, the earlier you switch to the formulas the better as they taste foul especially the amino acid ones such as neocate or alfamino which you will probably need but at the same time there are the benefits of breastfeeding.
I breastfeed my daughter with multiple allergies until 10 months when I ended up in hospital partly as a consequence of the ridiculous diet I needed to be on due to her multiple allergies and we couldn't cope with managing her diet and my diet. We had an uphill battle to get her to accept the formula as she had a reaction to the first formula the GP prescribed which triggered a severe bottle aversion. She couldn't even look at a bottle without trying to leap out of my arms. She was prescribed an extensively hydrolysed formula which still contains dairy and it contained coconut which she is also allergic too. She only had 1oz but it meant she screamed without pause from 7pm until 3am when she crashed.

Its a tricky decision with no one right answer.

Anything can be an allergen my daughter is allergic to more vegetables than top 14 but things I would look at next are egg, beef (10% of babies with cmpa react to beef) and whatever you have increased or introduced into your diet to replace dairy and soya.

I cut dairy, soya & egg for 3 years to bf DD. It really does get easier to exclude soya. I found shopping online easier as I could check the ingredients.
DD wouldn't take a bottle so I had no choice - and the smell of dairy free milk was 🤢.