Is soya bad for boys?

[dazedandconfused]

The homeopathist recommended a 3-week dairy-free trial for DS, so see if this improves his eczema. He is therefore having various milk/yoghurt replacements, incuding soya yoghurt, margarine and custard. However, another mumtold me today that you must be careful with giving soya products to boys, as it can make them infertile! Eeek! Does anyone know anything about this? Any help/advice appreciated...

i own a health food shop and i have never heard of this! in many countries soya is one of the most widely eaten foods and cows milk is rarely if ever used.
i will ask and few questions and see what i can find out.

(my dh has been fairly much dairy free for years and eats/drinks loads of soya food...both our babies were concieved on first month of trying so definatly no fertility problems!!!)

i wouldn't touch an exclusion diet for anyone, unless it had been recommended by a medically qualified person. my dd1 had eczema which disappeared once we finished swimming lessons - so it was the chlorine - so you might think something has worked, when it hasn't necessarily iyswim.

i think 3 weeks is normall recommended as you shoild see an improvement in this time...if no obvious improvement then go back to your old diet.
during the 3 weeks do everything else you normally would...that way you know the improvement was due to dairy free.
if you want to change anything else, (eg soap, lotions, washing powder, other food, creams) do these at a differwent time...otherwise you will not know which thing caused the improvement.

One of my SIL's is a Dr and appareantly a memo was sent to all Dr's re the infertility concerns. My other SIL had a 6 month old boy on soya and the advice was to get him off the soya pronto - he went onto Nutramagen (?sp). I would suggest you speak to your GP as I'm not sure what age groups this applied to.

I have heard before about soya not been good - moderation okay... but not in large amounts. I THINK that alot of countries who have traditionally eaten soya have done so at a rate lower than what is now integrated into western eating lifestyles / foodstuffs ie soya in bread not to mention all the soya products available.

This article about soya mentions birth defects in baby boys.

Your homeopath may recommend a change in diet but she/he is not a dietician or naturopath. Perhaps you should take your son to a naturopath for advice.

Just thought I would point out that the article also mentions this with regards to allergies...

I'm intolerant to cow's milk, so should I drink soya milk instead?

Soya has become the fashionable option for people 'intolerant' to dairy products. It's little known that soya is the second most common allergen. Only 1 per cent of the population is truly allergic to cows' milk and, of those, two-thirds will also be intolerant to soya milk.

Thanks for your inputs. This is a bit scary: I don't know if we should carry on with the 'dairy-free' at all. We've been doing it just one week.I have a friend whose son was born with hypospadias (penis defect), put down to the amount of soya products she had eaten during early pregnancy. I stupidly hadn't made the connection between this and DS. I think I will go back to giving DS yoghurt etc, but just use oat/rice milk instead of cow's. The trouble is, I'd like to go to a naturapath as well, but by the time we paid for the homeopathist and all the products and diet she recommended, we'd spent over £50-I can't afford to do that again for a while.

dazedandconfused, homeopathy is available on the nhs. where do you live?

The defect occurs during pregnancy during pregnancy according to this article.

I have just started giving dd rice milk and will also use oat milk - you can get sheep milk at health shops. So perhaps you should try your son on these alternatives and see if the excema improves. How old is he btw?

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just to echo the other advice, particularly gloworm's point about soya being consumed all over the Orient

My mum raised this issue with me a while back (DH only drinks soya milk and uses it on DS1's cereal and some milk drinks). It turns out you would have to be drinking pints of it daily over many years for it to have an effect on a boys' fertility.

Please don't worry about it

Well, a pint a day for a baby/child doesn't seem too much, does it?. (Here speaking the calf who used to drink a litre per day...)

I haven't heard about the infertility issue but when DS eczema was at it's worst we insisted in him getting soya milk, they didn't encourage us to try it but we did anyway, then a couple of drs asked us not to use it for more than 3 weeks. We use it for three weeks but there was no change at all in his eczema.

PS. By the way, our homeopath asked us to stop using emollients and change to calendula cream. BIG MISTAKE. Homeopathy can be great, specially if your doctor is also a traditional practicioner but there are people around who don't know quite well what they are doing...

This is an item from the Food Standards Agency about soya products.

Jennifer1 Dear Dazedandconfused, you have me worried now, I'm Vegan and have to drink lots of soya to get my calcium. I also eat lots of soya products and tofu like yogurts, burger, sausages as well. I vaguely remember someone saying this to me 2 years ago but wasn't pregnant so didn't worry. I'm due in October and seeing a private dietician 31/7/04 3rd appt. Will ask her her views on this and report back. Meanwhile I wouldn't worry too much there are more dangerous substances out there like antibiotics in meat and dairy products....

DAC, My ds is under the care of a NHS dietician due to cow's milk intolerance ( he also has eczema). He's dairy-free and on hydrolysed formula in his food but otherwise b/f. I asked about the soya and her advice was there would be, probably, no harm in me trying ds with the soya formula but she would prefer if I didn't due to question marks over health concerns regarding phyto-estregens. She stressed that this didn't mean that soya was 'dangerous' but that there were uncertainties. Apparently, there has been talk within the healthcare community of soya formula being banned. This was a complete surprise to me. She advised an acceptable level for my ds to be 2 soya yoghurts a week. He's 8 mos.

Furthermore, she said there is a high risk of babies intolerant to cow's milk protein being intolerant to soya protein and that by becoming over-reliant on soya that I could create another intolerance. It is harder to avoid soya than dairy as soya is in 75% of all manufactured food-stuffs. I was a bit surprised at this but since becoming an avid label-reader, soya or soya derivatives seem to be everywhere.

Finally, she also stressed that there is a big difference between a pre-weaned baby having soya formula as its sole source of nutrition than a weaned baby who has soya products occassionally. Depends how much they consume. How old is your ds? It doesn't sound like he'll be getting a lot of soya as a % of his total food consumption.

You can get non-dairy, non-soya spread called Pure which I use - yellow label. It is very hard though to find non-dairy and non-soya replacement foods, so I sympathise.

Thanks again for all the inputs. I doesn't seem as though there is a definitive answer on all this-there must be many people who have soya in their diet who are perfectly healthy.

Jennifer1, I'm really sorry to worry you when you're pregnant. I'm sure things will be fine-perhaps you could discuss with your doctor if you're concerned. I don't want to scaremonger -I just feel I don't know enough about the nutrition thing to make the decision for DS to go dairy-free long-term.

I have now reintroduced yoghurt with no adverse effect on his eczema. I must say that the cream and tincture that the homeopathist gave us has worked a treat at clearing things up, but I think the comments here are right: that for nutrition advice it's best to go to a nutritionist to be sure!

BTW, my friend's baby had to have a minor op but he is absolutely fine now.

well, not sure what to do now,also read the report sent to GP's about soyamilk. Can't remember exactly but seemed to say not to use it before 2y of age??
My ds who is 3 1/2 doesn't like cow's milk, although will eat cheese, yoghurt etc. However really likes soyamilk and will certainly drink over 1 pint a day. Often try to presuade him to drink water or juice but not very keen. Not sure what to do, would have to ban itfrom the house??

Spoke to my pead today as i took my ds off nutramagin and back onto soya milk, then felt guilty after reading these threads that i may have caused harm.

I was told that babies under 6 months shouldnt have soya products as this is thier only source of nutrition untill they are weaned. Problems may only occur if drank in HUGE amounts. My ds is only on 14floz a day and has no other soya products so i feel alot better about it now. Hope this helps other worriers