GFCF diet and ASD - basic questions

[eskimomama]

Hello all - I originally posted this on the Behaviour forum but thought it was more appropriate here.

I've been advised to look into the GFCF diet after posting in here about my 2 yo DD, who shows some signs of possible ASD (no dx or real evaluation yet though).
Now here are my questions...

• DD is allergic to cow's milk protein and eggs - she is being followed by an allergist on these very carefully since she is 6 mo. She can't have any traces of egg at all in her food but 6 months ago her milk allergy has reduced so she can tolerate biscuits containing milk (ie the dairy element has been cooked) - Now in a GFCF diet would those have to be eliminated fully?? I've been advised to keep offering her those biscuits so she can start "building her tolerance to cow's milk". Wwyd??

• Gluten-wise - Does oatmeal and more importantly oat milk have to be eliminated? Oat milk fortified with Calcium was up to now my saviour for her calcium intake...I've been partially weaning her from breastmilk with oat milk since she's about 1 year old...I will go a bit mental if I have to eliminate oats on top of everything else (egg and dairy is already quite limiting).

• does every source of gluten have to be eliminated fully or can you see improvements in ASD type behaviour by massively reducing gluten? (ie keep oats and oatmilk but eliminate wheat fully)

• I'm still BFing her - do I have to embark on a gluten free diet myself to make the whole diet worthwhile? I'm already very underweight after BFing on a dairy/egg free diet for 18 months and I don't think I can go gluten free and keep BFing. Very reluctant to even try I must say sad

Thanks in advance for advice on this

I'd be tempted just to cut out gluten to start with -otherwise if you notice any changes you won't know what's caused it.

Sorry, oats and oatmilk contains gluten - but you can get gluten-free oats and some rice milk is fortified with calcium. Again, there's no harm in eliminating wheat first then seeing how it goes.

I have no idea about breast milk, and would be interested to find out...

Thank you. The more I read about it (on celiac websites) the more it seems like gluten goes through breastmilk :(

Oh no! Still, you've managed 2 years - that deserves a medal in my book.

If you do decide to cut out gluten yourself there's some great recipes for baking in books by Grace Cheetham (got mine from Sainsburys). I have yet to find a palatable make of pasta, although ds wolfs down rice pasta.

Tall, rice pasta is far better than corn, too much corn can also cause adverse reaction, so can soya. Esp watch the glucose-fructose sweetener used in commercial cakes/biscuits, it's worse than sugar.