CMPA but seems to tolerate breast milk?

[SunshineLollipops9]

Hello all,

At about 2 weeks old, my DS started to become really unsettled, had reflux, vomiting large amounts, was very congested and had quite bad baby acne. He is EBF so I cut dairy and soy out for 6 weeks. His vomiting reduced a lot (was still sick a few times a week), congestion settled and seemed more settled in general. After the 6 week challenge I reintroduced both dairy and soy and his acne and seemed to flare up again and he was slightly more congested some nights, but no other signs. So both my GP & HV decided it was probably a coincidence and he didn’t have CMPA.

Stayed on dairy but still cut down a little bit and all seemed fine. Last night I tried him on some formula and he was fussy taking it. He had about 15 mls and 2 hours later he was vomiting huge amounts and was very unsettled through the night and today, still vomiting and his congestion is already worse.

Is it possible for a baby to only properly react to formula but tolerate the proteins in breast milk quite well? I’m going to talk to my HV tomorrow but wanted to know if anyone else had experienced this?

Thank you 😊

I exclusively breast fed till 6 months and had dairy in my diet.
But the first bottle of formula dd tried she came out in hives literally as she drank it.
She was diagnosed with CMPA and had grown put of it between 2 and 3.

Well, yes, of course, because formula is made of cows' milk and you're not a cow.

If you've cut down on dairy yourself and are BF, DS is only ingesting minimal cows' milk proteins. When you FF him, he ingested a whole lot! Hence his reaction.

You do know that formula is cow's milk?

Obviously…

Dairy also enters breast milk. Of course it’s not anywhere as much as formula. I just wanted to see if other people’s babies/children with CMPA tolerated the cows milk protein in breast milk. As most research I have seen and been told my professionals is that they would react to both.

Proteins are broken down in breastmilk. It is more typical that a baby reacts to formula and little reaction to breastmilk.
I think from what you have said they probably were having mild reactions to your breastmilk and I think I would start a food dairy and see if there is any correlation in symptoms and dairy/soya content to see if it is worth doing another trial of dairy and soya free. Remember there can be 3 days between eating a food and having symptoms