How the foods you eat might hurt your baby...

I've mentioned in previous posts that my colicky baby Ben was intolerant / sensitive to casein (the protein in cow milk) and I eliminated all dairy from my diet while I was nursing him. Recently, my entire household went on a casein (dairy) free, gluten (wheat) free, soy free diet and I've been spending entirely too much time reading and researching these foods on the internet.

I just want to share a few quotes, and offer a few sites to give our pregnant and nursing moms a little heads up about about how the proteins in these foods pass through the breast milk and could possibly be responsible for your child's colic, fussiness, gassiness, vomitting, gerd, reflux, green or bloody stools, or many other health issues.

"In August 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued an official statement about allergenic proteins in a mother’s diet appearing in her breastmilk and creating problems for her baby.  They stopped far short of talking about excellent research showing that cow’s milk in the diet of a pregnant or breastfeeding woman creates even more problems than we ever thought for her nursing baby.

Please don’t misunderstand the incredible superiority of human milk for human babies.  Infants who receive formula have more intestinal problems by far than infants who drink breastmilk.  Uninformed medical practitioners have actually told mothers that their babies were “allergic to their breastmilk.”  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Babies can be allergic to protein fragments from mom’s diet which end up in the milk, but if they are sensitive to those proteins, they would be much more affected by an artificial baby milk made entirely of non-human protein.  Even so called “hypoallergenic” formulas are rarely any better.   They are made of proteins broken down into smaller fragments to provoke less of a reaction.  They are still allergenic and don’t solve the problem for many babies."

Common reactions to dairy in babies:

• Green, runny stool
• Blood tinged stool
• Skin rashes
• Chronic nasal stuffiness
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Excessive abdominal discomfort
• Cramping
• Coughing
• Mimic of GER (gastroesophageal reflux) symptoms
• Heartburn
• Spitting up
• Gassiness
• Constipation"

This information was taken from Dr. Jay Gordin, MD FAAP website.

On his site there is a ton of extremely useful information about breastfeeding (topics include, but are not limited to: the pitfalls of supplementing, mastitis and clogged ducts,  nursing strikes, thrush, bottle feeding, nursing and working secrets etc) and other medical / health related topics as well.

The La Leche League offers lots of resources I wish I had looked into back when I was pregnant too.

This beanmom site offers guidelines on dairy free foods as well as many helpful links as well.