Possible CMPA or am I being hasty?

[Laura3128]

Hi All,

soooo a bit of a long one…

My son who is know 14 weeks and 5 days was slightly colicky from about 1 week old, he was formula fed on cow and gate, so I tried infacol and it didn’t really do much, he wasn’t terrible with it but he would have terrible trapped wind which I could see was causing him discomfort so after speaking with a midwife she suggested I put baby on cow and gate comfort which I done and he has been amazing on it since ( he was approx 8 weeks) every now and again I used a pre made bottle of normal formula milk when out and about and he was fine.

fast forward 3 weeks and he was sounding a bit raspy and looked at times like he had a sour taste in his mouth, so I went to the docs who suggested he had silent reflux and prescribed Gaviscon - you cannot put Gaviscon in a comfort milk so I had to go back to normal cow and gate, used for 5 days, he got terrible constipation and wasn’t enjoying his bottles and I could see the griping wind pains coming back, he also came up in a eczema like rash which I put down to a reaction to the Gaviscon, spoke with the GP who was basically useless and said I kind of had to decide which is lesser of the evil for my baby and decide to either come off the Gaviscon and deal with these side effects or go back to before - after weighing up the issues I went back to cow and gate comfort, eczema cleared up, poo’s back to normal and as a whole happy baby (please bare in mind he has never not been a happy baby, never distressed where we can’t settle him or crying for hours on end)

fast forward again now 14 weeks old, I ran out of comfort milk whilst at home and gave him some ready made cow and gate formulas which I had in and thoughts let’s try normal formula as I was told he should grow out of colic by around 3 months as his digestive system matures, he took the milk absolutely fine, no stomach aches or trapped wind… however - after 2 days he started sounding slightly raspy again and this evening his eczema had came up over his stomach and arms again…

could this be because I didn’t ease him into normal formula and the diary is a overload?
could he have CMPA and the comfort milk has masked it? (albeit surely not given that it still has dairy in)

any suggestions? I will ring the health visitor and doctors and speak with them but just generally looking for advice and if anyone has been in a similar position as I really hope my little one doesn’t have CMPA.

Also must add - both occasions with eczema flare I have heard moogoo cream and it has gone within 48 hours, but is that because Iv also stopped the normal formula?

Anyone?

Four kids all with CMPA and reflux and I would say there's a good chance of both here tbh. Your doctor also sounds useless. Comfort milk is slightly hydrolysed which means the cow's milk protein is already broken down a bit. This is the part that most babies with CMPA struggle with so the milk helps. Prescription formulas for CMPA have different stages from partially to completely broken down. I had one baby who was fine on Hipp Organic Comfort milk,two who needed Aptamil Pepti Prescription milk and my youngest who started with Aptamil Pepti but quickly needed to move to Nutramigen LGG. With him it was most evident in his bowel movements (very dark green and very smelly wind) and clear discomfort/irritability all the time. He's 1 now and actually still on it. The only thing with the Nutramigen is it smells and tastes like cheese! Which is no good for weaning when you want to add a little milk to something that isn't really a savoury dish 😂

The 3 on prescription milk also needed Omeprazole. Gaviscon did not help at all and I would ask for liquid omeprazole not something called Losec mups which is a dispersible tablet with silly wee balls inside it that they expect you to try and get into a syringe or onto a spoon and feed to a baby. They might push back because of the cost of the liquid omeprazole or say it isn't licensed but I would stand my ground. The Rosemont brand of liquid omeprazole can also be put into a little bit of milk unlike other reflux medicines. Also, the reflux has presented in all my children differently from projectile vomiting to being very irritable especially when lying down. Oh, also it is apparently quite old fashioned now but we use something called Carobel when they are on prescription formula as it is a thinner milk. A little scoop of carobel thickens the milk which helps the reflux. You generally only find it in pharmacies and a lot have to order it in rather than have it on the shelf. It's worth asking your doctor for a trial of prescription formula to begin with and if they won't I would be asking for a second opinion. It isn't something you should be getting told to just put up with or spun nonsense about "colic".

If he is happy on comfort milk, I would just stick with that and not worry. That isn't being dismissive, it is just doing what works for now.

Just one other thing - a lot of people confuse CMPA with lactose intolerance. It's not the same thing. Lactose intolerance is actually very rare in babies. It does happen but rarely. People do tend to confuse them though. I've seen them asking things like if anybody knows which supermarkets stock lactose free formula for their baby with CMPA as they have have ran out of their prescription milk. This won't help at all. They may as well buy any formula as the cow's milk proteins in lactose free formula are the same.

@Ducksurprise your child who stayed on comfort milk, how long did you do this for and what did you do in regards to weening?

Sorry @Ducksurprise I meant for the question to go to @littleorangefox

@Ducksurprise i am happy to stick on the comfort milk, however I am concerned if I’m just ignoring a issue as it’s masked and what shall I do when it comes to weening etc? It’s all new and a mine field to me. He is a very happy baby and is gaining weight on comfort milk with no reactions other than a little bit of silent reflux?

Two of mine were on comfort, I used that milk until they were about 15 months and then started adding in milk products, one was fine, one gets a skin reaction from milk, but they are now late teen and still get a reaction but still drink milkshakes.

Obviously everyone is different, but for now if happy I would save the worry for later .

Until he was around 1 year corrected age (born 3 months early) and we gradually started adding a little cow's milk to his bottles maybe half an ounce af a time. Also started introducing things like cheese and other foods containing milk. He has tolerated it more than the other 3 but the youngest again has been the worst. He still can't have drinks of milk, yoghurt, soft cheese etc but can tolerate it in other things and cooked foods like sauces. We have never had any help from health professionals like doing the milk ladder or dietitians or anything which I think is wild.

If he is happy, no skin fine, nappies fine, and gaining weight well on the comfort milk, I would stick with that. It might be mild CMPA that is fine with the milk slightly broken down, but if that's all he needs, I would stop there. I'd go carefully with dairy at weaning, though – not avoid it completely, just start with stuff from the bottom of the milk ladder and monitor for any reaction.

The prescription milks are very thin and often don't taste good, so you'd need to add carobel or gaviscon if there's an element of reflux, and baby may not like the flavour. Omeprazole can be an absolute game-changer for babies who are in a lot of pain, struggling to gain weight, etc. from reflux (looking at you, DD2!), but it's a much stronger medicine than comfort milk or even gaviscon. It's only supposed to be prescribed when other treatments haven't got baby's pain and feeding difficulties under control, and it sounds like the comfort milk does that for him.

@skkyelark he is absolutely fine as he is on comfort milk, just gets a little raspy with silent reflux at times… I just don’t want him to be suffering and I’m not noticing/ comfort is masking a bigger issue.

I think like you say I’ll stay as we are and then slowly introduce dairy when weening and see what happens then!