Breastfed baby v gassy and in pain

[Jada2024]

My breastfed (5 week old) baby seems in pain a lot. No naps during the day she sleeps for a few minutes and wakes screaming in pain. She cries then passes gas relaxes for a few seconds or minutes and then is screaming when she needs to pass gas again. She burps and spits up a lot as well. Sometimes after feeding she will bring up a good bit of undigested milk other times awhile later it's more frothy looking.
She burps farts and spits up a lot more than my first and Seems in pain more also.

Any advice? Anything I should or should not eat?
We do tummy time spend ages burping her after feeds move her legs around and I've tried tummy massages.
I'm wondering if allergies are a possibility also but not sure what to cut out!

Just awful seeing her in pain

It did resolve after I cut out dairy.
I had to get really strict and check every item for milk some seasonings and curry for example had milk powder and that was also a problem. Once there was nothing with milk in my diet baby is fine. It did take a few weeks for it to completely settle. On the occasions where I accidentally had something with milk in it she would be back to screaming and gassy again for a few days.

Thank you for replying. Have you ever had it confirmed by the gp since these days all they say it’s the little ones are developing snd they will grow out of it.

No, they generally don’t do any testing at this age as it is common for babies to grow out of it when they’re older so it’s not worth testing.
My GP recommended I stay off dairy though and just make sure I get enough calcium.
I joined a dairy free breastfeeding group on Facebook which I found beneficial. Hearing from other people going through the same thing makes it less daunting! The recommendation in that group is to start the dairy ladder when baby is over 9 months old and has been dairy free for more than 6 months so that’s what I am going to go with

Just to say, this happened with my DD. She was so sensitive - even a trace of dairy through my breast milk set her off. We had a couple of hospital visits because it was so bad. Just for reassurance, she is now 11 months happily eating dairy yogurts, cheese and regular cows milk with no problems.

Thanks for sharing, I’ve been wondering if the fact that she is so sensitive would mean she wouldn’t outgrow it!
Glad to hear your little one did.

Glad your baby is much better, I had similar issues.

The thing that grates for me is that you were able to take control and stop consuming dairy and soy and clearly it was the right call. Despite the incorrect advice from the GP.

However, non dairy and soy formula is prescription only. So unless you can get a GP to agree, it's out of your hands. You'd still have had an unsettled, poorly baby. I have a friend that had a CMPA baby that was formula fed and after being on thr dairy free formula for a couple months had a review with a GP that didn't believe in it, and refused to prescribe her more! Leaving her to choose between not feeding her baby and feeding her baby something she knew would make her ill for a few days while she played merry hell with the GP to get a second one that would prescribe. Took weeks to settle completely again.

Oh really, I didn’t realise it was prescription only!
That is terrible how does a GP just not believe in it…
What an awful situation for your friend to have been put in.
I do think they are very quick to label everything as colic

Thank you for sharing. Thst is really reassuring to know. Unfortunately especially when babies are breast fed it’s hard to know for sure except excluding and the reintroducting diet. My baby is mix fed mainly breast but formula introduced because of low weight gain and she is so much worse after having the formula but because it’s in small quantities I suppose she doesn’t have more symptoms except spit up and very very gassy. I started using goats formula she seems a little bit better but it still I suppose has the proteins she reacts to. Doctors will not do much since she is gaining good weight now but it’s really hard have a baby thst is not happy and unsettled. It is really reassuring to know your little one is good with dairy products now. Was she ok when you started introducing from 6 months?

We had issues with formula and my daughter. I needed to stop breastfeeding for my mental health but she had multiple allergies. The GP prescribed 3 formulas with coconut in, one of the foods she was allergic too, and then gave up. We ended up seeing a private paediatrician who found us a coconut free, dairy and soya free formula but the coconut formulas gave her a severe bottle aversion so it was a nightmare trying to get her off breastfeeding
The other thing that GPs seem to insist on is starting with a hydrolysed formula first and usually if a baby is so sensitive they react to breastmilk they will need an amino acid formula and these can be hard to get from the gp

It’s worth noting also that struggle with weight gain is another symptom of an intolerance.
No one really took much notice of it with my baby because she was big but she went from 99 percentile down to the 84th percentile. She is now back up to the high 90s.

Also when removing a potential trigger from your diet it can take weeks to notice a difference. With milk for example it takes 2 weeks for it to be fully removed from your milk then another 2 for it to be fully removed from baby’s system and then it can take another 2 for baby’s gut to fully heal- all depending on how bad they have been reacting but it can take up to 8 weeks.

I did notice some difference soon enough though. Now if I accidentally have something with milk it usually only affects her for about 3 days.

just wanted to leave all info here in case someone comes looking at this thread

100% everything you said. My poor baby went from 75th down to 30th centile before I was believed. Then they wanted to do a 'reentry trial' after only a month dairy free. 2 days of me eating a little dairy and I stopped again because it was so clear and baby had dropped to 20th centile (actually lost weight) by an appointment 2 weeks later.

10 months later (bar a a few accidental exposures which also have about 3 days of symptoms here too) and baby is happy and healthy back up on 50th centile.

More immediate was the lack of reflux and projectile spit up after about a week. Also 100% breastfed and my baby went from several poos a day to once every 3 days (until weaning of course). No more explosions or mucous. No more mummy shaped holes in the wet bed covers after baby throws up an entire feed. And just sleeping so much more soundly. It took me and DH a solid week before we trusted he was OK because he wasn't constantly moving and making noise in sleep anymore from discomfort.

They now actually believe that proteins are clear from your milk in 8-24h but it can take 2-6+ weeks for the gut to heal from the prolonged exposure.

We saw that it took my daughter the same amount of time to recover from me eating a food whilst breastfeeding and her eating after I had stopped breastfeeding. 1-2 weeks to see an improvement 2-6 weeks to get to normal.

My daughter had issues with weight gain that weren't recognised. She was following the 9th percentile nicely and I was told she's got no issues with weight gain she just a 9th percentile baby and following her line. After reducing and then removing dairy she moved up to the 25-50th percentile where she has stayed since.

Oh this is so sad to hear what you have been trough and especially little one. How much babies need to suffer for them to beleive it’s not fair for little souls thst can’t talk and explain they are in pain.Well done to you for finding the way to help little one. I wonder maybe trying hydrolysed formula with my little one to see if that helps at least a bit. I have cut dairy out of my diet but no improvement yet. This is stressing me out so much my mental health is really suffering. .

Often if baby is sensitive enough to react to breastmilk you need amino acid as the cow milk protein in your milk is similar to hydrolysed formula as your body processed it. And formula like dietary changes can take weeks to settle.

Bear in mind it may not be CMPA, other allergens can cause similar reactions through milk. For my baby they have other allergies, some it doesn't matter if I eat them, some it does. Coconut, tree nuts, Oats, I've heard of lots that can pass through. Also most babies allergic to milk also allergic to soya. So if you're eating soya yoghurt or drinking soya milk as your alternative it likely won't help.

@FlyingHighFlyingLow I don't see many others with a coconut allergy! My daughter has one too!

@Mybaby2024 it might be worth keeping a food diary. My daughter has multiple allergies. The next ones to check for after dairy are soya and egg. My daughter is actually more sensitive to soya than dairy.

I agree with @FlyingHighFlyingLow you are probably going to need an amino acid formula if they are reacting to breastmilk. The main two are neocate and alfamino. My daughter went on to alfamino as the neocate has coconut in and she's allergic to that.

Have you tried drinking peppermint or fennel tea? It goes through the breastmilk and settles the baby's tummy. It worked a treat for us.

I will try food diary, it’s so hard any advise on what you did eat any suggestions would help.

SuperSange thank you, I’ll try fennel tea but I’ve read peppermint actually reduces milk in lactating women so don’t use peppermint.