Silent Reflux - EBF Mumma's diet

[Margo34]

Hi

My EBF 17w old baby has silent reflux and I've been advised by medical practitioners to cut out a long list of foods from my diet for 2 weeks and slowly reintroduce them 1 by 1 to see what impacts baby's reflux. The foods I've been told to cut out form the majority of my diet!! Help!

Told to cut out:
Milk, milk products
Eggs
Soy
Tomatoes
Apples
Bananas
Citrus fruits
Onions
Leeks
Chocolate

I need some help with meal planning for myself please so I can carry on breastfeeding my LO. Any suggestions?

Anyone else been in a similar position? I'm exhausted and I am not in the headspace to overhaul my entire diet.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice or support!

Who gave you that advise? I’m going to guess HV or GP because it’s rubbish advice and they don’t normally have much training in this.

For dairy you need to cut it out for 6 weeks before you challenge it.

Yep. I've been there. I just suffered through it.

I used almond milk and oat milk.

Toast with peanut butter and honey for breakfast or porridge with almond milk.

Salad for lunch with beetroot and boiled eggs.

You can adapt lots of main meals.

It was medical practitioners advice as I said ☺️

If you don't mind me asking politely, why should their medical advice be rubbish and what is the basis of your 6 weeks dairy-free suggestion? I'm trying to do a lot of reading around and research as I can so I can best help my LO as well. Thanks

@thatwentbadly I meant to tag you in my previous post

@fitzbilly how long did it take you to see any impact out of interest?

Yes I agree 2 weeks isn't nearly long enough to see if dairy is a culprit. You need to cut it out for at least six weeks.

It's unusual advice that you've been given.

Does your baby have symptoms of CMPA or another allergy? Other than the reflux, I mean.

My advice would be to cut out dairy, don't replace it with soya (ie use oat milk and other alternatives) and keep a food and symptom diary. The diary might help you notice patterns in what you're eating and flare-ups of the reflux.

I've had two babies with reflux and CMPA, DC2 is 4 months old and I've cut out quite a few things but only because I've noticed that certain foods flare the reflux.

This website is a great resource
dilanandme.com/confirm-cmpa/
And if you're on Facebook there's a group called "Breastfeeding with CMPA and other allergies", it was started by the author of the website/blog.

Oh and just to add, the most common allergens for babies are Milk, Eggs, Wheat and Soya, and foods that can flare reflux are acidic things like tomato, citrus etc.

PPs are correct that it takes up to 6 weeks for cow's milk protein to leave baby's system (3 weeks for you and 3 weeks for baby) although you should hopefully see improvements before that.

Other foods are digested differently so they don't take so long.

@Margo34

It was medical practitioners advice as I said ☺️

If you don't mind me asking politely, why should their medical advice be rubbish and what is the basis of your 6 weeks dairy-free suggestion? I'm trying to do a lot of reading around and research as I can so I can best help my LO as well. Thanks

I know you were asking someone else but here is the info

"If it is suspected that a baby is reacting to cow’s milk protein via breast milk, a mother may be advised to avoid cow’s milk and dairy products in their diet while breastfeeding. This involves a trial of up to six weeks to see if the baby’s symptoms improve."
www.allergyuk.org/information-and-advice/conditions-and-symptoms/469-cows-milk-allergy/download/1666

It takes 3 weeks for milk proteins to leave your body and up to another 3 weeks for them to leave the baby’s. You won’t see the full impact of dairy elimination until up to week 6. Some parents of babies with CMPA report that symptoms get worse before they get better.

This is very odd advice. When DD had reflux no one suggested that i cut anything out, she was just prescribed gaviscon and that fixed it in days.

Reflux is caused by immature valves in your baby's digestive system, it gets better as they grow, and the way to treat it is to neutralise the acid in the stomach. The easiest way to do that is with medication.

@Ohalrightthen
Reflux is sometimes caused by CMPA and/or other allergies. Not always, but it's important to rule them out.
Medication has its place (we have used it and are still using it when necessary) but it's madness to medicate if symptoms are caused by an allergy, you have to cut out the allergen first and may not even need medication at all.

Unusual. The most I've ever advised cut out, in the first instance, is dairy and soya. Usually just dairy to start with.

@Ohalrightthen reflux is often a main symptom of allergy. For both my DDs their reflux was caused by CMPA and for DD2 her other allergies too.

It’s not necessary GP and HV fault that they are giving duff advice, it not something most of them have much training in.

It’s a tough road, admittedly I haven’t had to cut out that list but Soya, Dairy and Egg is bloody bad enough.

You can actually eat a lot more than it seems in the beginning.

Shepherds pie, cottage pie, fish pie can all be made with substitute ingredients and it’s unnoticed/various things on toast what ever you like there’s probably an alternative at the minute. Yoghurt and oats for breakfast with some fruit, oats are also great for milk supply .

Coconut collaborative do great yoghurt/desserts, pretty low cal too. Tesco free from section is probably the best I’ve seen in any supermarket.

Nomo chocolate has essentially nothing in it, tastes great. Soya lecithin is usually not reacted to so I eat things containing this.

Have a look online for CMPA recipes and then tailor to your additional needs above.

Good luck our DC is 8m now and we’re well into the swing of it.

Thanks all for the info!!

They seemed to think it was unlikely to be CMPA but told me to cut out milk as a precaution as well. They did say that reflux is most likely caused by acidic diet, of which mine is very as I love acidity, so I guess that's why I was given the advice I have been. I've started a good and symptoms diary today 😊

Is CMPA a lifelong allergy out of interest?

*food diary

After about three weeks we saw huge improvement in my baby. It was cmpa for us as well as silent reflux which was medicated with ranitidine and I became dairy free and then fed him a fairy free diet. We reintroduced dairy into his diet using the milk ladder a few times and finally he didn't react just after he was 2.5.

He was off the medication at about a year old.

By about the age of three he was fine to have all dairy.

"Is CMPA a lifelong allergy out of interest?"

No. Most (maybe all? I'm not sure) grow out of it. Obviously age varies.

I'm quite intrigued by that list of things you've been advised to cut out. Leeks?! Most of them don't match up with the acidity theory. And if allergies aren't suspected (if no other symptoms, digestive/skin for example, it seems unlikely to be allergies) why would you cut out milk, eggs, soya?

I can understand doing a dairy-free trial to rule out CMPA but cutting out everything on that list seems quite extreme and unnecessary.

@namechange30 🤷‍♀️ I can only tell you what I was told not the why! I also thought it seemed a bit extreme but I'm not a medic of any sort.

The consult went along the lines of 'slant the baby's bed, cut these foods, it will be difficult to medicate an EBF baby but have some gaviscon anyway, you must be tired, every baby gets colic, they'll grow out of it.'

@Margo34 DS2 had horrendous reflux, would project vomit, inhale vomit in lungs and ears, have constant chest and ears infection, and we tried every thing. He was on lansoprazole, but it didn't really help . It didn't make things better but he was worse without it. He cried non stop for the first 8 months of his life.

He was EBF and was told by gastroenterologist to follow a diet similar to yours. No dairy, no eggs/poultry, no citrus, no tomatoes.

When weaned, he got worse before getting better. They did some blood test and he had a no dairy, eggs, wheat diet, which was very tricky because a lot of the gluten free products I was looking at for the no-wheat had milk powder or proteins.

Diet wise, my advice to you is to go basics, so a piece of steak or fish (not fried, no batter) with some veggies on the side and a bit of rice, Fruit salad for breakfast, lots of salads, cooked vegetables, ...
Like for the meds, the diet was more to alleviate reflux than fixing it. It will pass.

He is now a teenager and eats for four. Very athletic and strong. He has however asthma and a severe (anaphylactic ) penicillin allergy , probably from overuse when he was a baby . Had it at least once a mont from week 1 because of infection caused by vomit.