Possible dairy sensitivity?

wrote in message ...
DS is now 15 days old and I'm suspecting that he might have a dairy
sensitivity. I first suspected it because he spits up a lot. He rarely
makes it through a nursing session without spitting up while at the
breast. We burp him before nursing, during, and after and he still spits
up. Last week, he had several instances of projectile vomiting. I noted
that these occurred on days where I had been drinking large glasses of
milk. I stopped drinking straight cows milk and that seemed to clear up
the projectile vomiting. I didn't eliminate dairy, I just stopped
drinking
big glasses of milk. He still continues to spit up though. It's white,
curdy looking spit-up with a spoiled milk smell. When he spits up at the
breast, however, it looks like it just rolled back out of his throat
without even making it to his stomach. He even spits up after being
asleep
for hours without eating. He also pulls away from the breast every few
minutes to cough and gag. During the last day or so, he has also started
to pull away from the breast and scream for a bit. I tried having some
cereal with milk this morning to see what would happen and about 4 hours
later, he had some mucousy, bloody streaks in his poop.

I'm feeling very overwhelmed by the possibility of him being sensitive to
anything in my diet - especially dairy. I'm trying as hard as possible to
do everything right and be the perfect breastfeeding Mom, but this is
going to be really hard for me to deal with. I was expecting the pain,
feelings of isolation, overwhelming committment, etc. and was prepared
for
that. I normally drink over a gallon of milk of week and am a life-long
milk lover. I feel very sad right now. I'm hoping there is another reason
for his problems or another solution besides elimination...

Manda

With that much spitting up happening, I would talk to your ped about
reflux. Alena goes through a lot of the same things.

DS is now 15 days old and I'm suspecting that he might have a dairy
sensitivity. I first suspected it because he spits up a lot. He rarely
makes it through a nursing session without spitting up while at the
breast. We burp him before nursing, during, and after and he still spits
up. Last week, he had several instances of projectile vomiting. I noted
that these occurred on days where I had been drinking large glasses of
milk. I stopped drinking straight cows milk and that seemed to clear up
the projectile vomiting. I didn't eliminate dairy, I just stopped drinking
big glasses of milk. He still continues to spit up though. It's white,
curdy looking spit-up with a spoiled milk smell. When he spits up at the
breast, however, it looks like it just rolled back out of his throat
without even making it to his stomach. He even spits up after being asleep
for hours without eating. He also pulls away from the breast every few
minutes to cough and gag. During the last day or so, he has also started
to pull away from the breast and scream for a bit. I tried having some
cereal with milk this morning to see what would happen and about 4 hours
later, he had some mucousy, bloody streaks in his poop.

I'm feeling very overwhelmed by the possibility of him being sensitive to
anything in my diet - especially dairy. I'm trying as hard as possible to
do everything right and be the perfect breastfeeding Mom, but this is
going to be really hard for me to deal with. I was expecting the pain,
feelings of isolation, overwhelming committment, etc. and was prepared for
that. I normally drink over a gallon of milk of week and am a life-long
milk lover. I feel very sad right now. I'm hoping there is another reason
for his problems or another solution besides elimination...

Manda

wrote:

He still continues to spit up though. It's white,
curdy looking spit-up with a spoiled milk smell.


That sounds like normal baby spitup.

When he spits up at the
breast, however, it looks like it just rolled back out of his throat
without even making it to his stomach.


Like he opened his mouth and all the milk just poured back
out? That sounds like normal baby spitup, too.

He even spits up after being asleep
for hours without eating.


Also sounds normal.

He also pulls away from the breast every few
minutes to cough and gag.


I'd guess that coincides with letdowns. He just got a big
mouthful of milk when he was expecting a much smaller one.
Still normal.

I tried having some
cereal with milk this morning to see what would happen and about 4 hours
later, he had some mucousy, bloody streaks in his poop.


That and the projectile vomitting certainly sound like milk
doesn't agree with him.


I'm feeling very overwhelmed by the possibility of him being sensitive to
anything in my diet - especially dairy.


An allergic baby is pretty overwhelming. My Caterpillar (12
weeks old) has developed eczema without any obvious cause,
and it can be really stressful.

But look at it this way. If he's sensitive to milk, you
aren't going to be able to give him milk-based formula.
There's about a 40% chance he'd develop an allergy to soy
formula as well. And then you're on the extra-stinky,
extra-expensive hypoallergenic formulas. That's without
even going into the benefits of bf in minimizing his odds of
developing allergies to other things.

I'm trying as hard as possible to
do everything right and be the perfect breastfeeding Mom


No Mom does everything right, and I don't think there's any
such thing as the perfect breastfeeding Mom. You just do
the best you can today, or even the best you can right now,
and don't worry about later until it's here. And then you
do the best you can then.

I was expecting the pain,


Is it getting better? The first two weeks were really
pretty awful for me. I was sore all the time (due to one
unfortunate late-night feeding with a bad latch), cried
every time she slept because I knew when she woke up she'd
want to eat, and couldn't face the overwhelming immensity of
having to nurse until 6 weeks, much less 6 months or a year.
So my goal was to get through the current feeding without
giving up. No promises about the next feeding, just this one.

And a bit past two weeks, I woke up one day and things were
better. And at 4 weeks, things were better still. And by 6
weeks, I could handle some longer-term goals. We were still
fine-tuning things at that point, but the worst of it was over.


feelings of isolation


You can take a 2-week old baby with you while you get some
socialization in. I know it doesn't feel like it, and I
wasn't able to get myself out of the house until 3 1/2
weeks, but once you've done it once, it's a lot easier to do
it again. If there's a La Leche League meeting near you,
that might be a good place to try. If the baby wants to
nurse while you're there, no one is going to look at you
funny while you try to get yourself positioned, no one will
care if you can nurse discreetly, and everyone will have BTDT.

I normally drink over a gallon of milk of week and am a life-long
milk lover.


I wish I could tell you that any of the milk substitutes out
there resembled real milk, but they don't. Sorry.

I'm hoping there is another reason
for his problems or another solution besides elimination...

It sounds like you've done the recommended "keep track of
what you eat to identify a pattern, eliminate the suspected
offender and see if the problems go away, reintroduce and
see if the problems recur." The good news is that milk
allergies are usually outgrown, and there's a possibility
that you could reintroduce it into your diet in a few (4-6)
months.

Reflux is another thing you might look into, but I think
that's likely to be an "also" rather than an "instead."

Good luck,

Phoebe

In article , wrote:

I'm trying as hard as possible to
do everything right and be the perfect breastfeeding Mom,

Well, I dunno anything about dairy allergy/sensitivity, but phrases like this
sound enormous warning bells to me.

We humans usually can't manage to do everything right, and we certainly aren't
perfect. If you are demanding perfection of yourself, you are on a very quick
trip to disillusionment and (I would hazard a guess) post-partum depression.

Could you settle for "trying your best" instead?

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"...children should continue to be breastfed... for up to two years of age
or beyond." -- Innocenti Declaration, Florence, 1 August 1990