Cows milk allergy discovered when weaning... What does this mean for breast feeding?

[AmyAW]

Baby has been EBF for the last seven months. Very easy feeding journey, baby happy and healthy.

Through weaning, baby is coming up in a mild rash when exposed to cows milk.

I want to keep EBF - do I now also need to give up cows milk?

Interested in experience from anyone who's been in the same situation - I'm sure I'm not alone! - before I get a textbook response from our health visitor.

If your baby isnt reacting to cows milk via your breastmilk then I dont see why you'd need to give it up too.

You don’t need to give up cows milk. If he’s not reacted so far to breastmilk he won’t now. Keep breastfeeding as long as you both want to.

You can use oat or soya milk in cooking and for cereals etc from now on. Don’t use organic ones as they are fortified like the others.

You can also use dairy alternative yoghurts etc as part of weaning. My eldest used to love coconut yoghurt with fruit purée when he was a baby.

There is a lot of misinformation out there about CMPA and some people will be quick to tell you that you have to stop breastfeeding.

If it helps as well, my eldest has CMPA and never reacted to my breastmilk. From the evidence I’ve seen, it’s not conclusive that the allergen passes into the breastmilk. There could be some evidence that if the mother is troubled by cows milk that it might pass through. A lot of adults do have issue with cows milk as we’re not designed to eat it, especially not in adulthood.

I was 90% dairy free anyway (and still am) but he still never reacted to my milk if I had some food with milk in.

Oh this is all reassuring. Thank you. I've been so worried I might need to give it up before me and baby are ready.

I breastfed my CMPA DS til 11 months- the formula they suggested if we wanted to move to formula was not very nice.

I had dairy myself while feeding him and he did have quite bad eczema but the allergy doctor said if he could tolerate it it was better than giving it up completely as reintroducing would be harder. We were lucky that he grew out of it around 13 months.

DS was fine while exclusively breastfed, but once he'd had cow's milk during weaning, it seemed to make his reaction worse and he couldn't tolerate it via breastfeeding any more. I ended up going dairy free for 6 months. If you have to, I promise it's not that bad!!!

It might be worth trying a week or two without dairy as there can be subtle symptoms caused by the tiny amount of cows milk protein in breastmilk. There are lots of substitutes available now so it isn't as difficult as it used to be. Mostly you just need to read the label on everything as dairy can appear in weird places you wouldn't expect.

In fact if your baby is tolerating it through your breastmilk it's a good idea to keep it in as this small exposure can help build tolerance. You might now see symptoms that you hadn't realised though in which case dairy free is relatively easy. The first few weeks are more challenging until you figure out a new bunch of things you can eat

Is there any update on this?

So my DD eventually grew out of the allergy at age 13 months, doing the milk ladder. I BF her until 17 months and never needed to change my diet :-)

Thanks so much for following up! That’s great she grew out of it. Out of interest what kind of rash was it? Hives? Or just redness?