Jane

Hi all!
my breastfed baby is still doing tests, he looks like a food allergic baby but the diagnosis is not sure yet... and I'm eliminating a lot of food from my diet... It is tough: this food "no, sorry... I can't! an appetizer "no... better no..." and after: reading all the labels for ingredients, feeling guilty if I breake the diet with something that can be suspicious... I hope it could be not for a longtime anymore, even if I would breasfeed my son as much as possible... or I'd better give up the breastfeeding idea? sometimes I think on it.

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Tannia Schrieber

I know its frustrating at the beginning, but it gets easler when you get used to the diet. My baby is allergic to just about everything, but you start to develop a larger and larger set of "safe" foods. My friends and family have been incredibly supportive, always coming up with new recipes, or offering to host dinners at home instead of restaurants, or even calling ahead at restaurants to check out their menus. I have found htat, even wih hte restrictions, BF is so much better than risking a switch to formula that he might have a negative reaction to, or even worse, refuse to eat because the elemental formulas taste so bad. A formula proble can get bad - really bad, some parents need to add nutrasweet to the formula just to replicate the sweetness of breastmilk. Plus its really expensive. Bfore I decided to change my diet, I did a LOT of research, and found that some milk banks are even looking for dairy free milk donors for children who now have a failure to thrive. I am planning to become a donor, because had I unknowingly chosen to go to formula, one of those poor children could have been mine.

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Barbara P

I know how hard it is to maintain an elimination diet as I have been eliminating dairy, soy, and sesame seeds from my diet since December now. My son is exclusively tube fed so I have to pump my breast milk and I don't produce enough to meet all his nutritional needs so I also have to supplement w/dairy & soy -free formula. Feeding him both breast milk and formula allows me to see how breast milk is so much easier on him. He becomes gassy, fussy, and throws up when he has been fed 6 oz of formula. In addition, the formula is so much thicker than breast milk that it takes so much longer to feed the formula through the NG-tube, well over an hour, that he becomes frustrated with having to sit there for so long. Hang in there, it does become easier after a while and a side benefit for me is that I am able to lose even more of my pregnancy weight gain.

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Cari Bowlin

Hi, just a thought from another perspective. I am a vegetarian and my baby was allergic to at least soy, milk, lentils, and wheat. After weeks of bloody diarrhea, I made the switch to formula. At first I felt like a failure. I kept asking myself, how can my baby be allergic to me? However, it took only two tries with formula to get the right one and the change was incredible. The bloody diarrhea stopped in 48 hours, she no longer had projectile spit up, and she was a much less fussy baby. Now, before everyone gets too upset with this post, I am not advocating formula without a good elimination diet first. But rather to offer the stand point that sometimes the formula is a good choice, and mom's shouldn't feel guilty if this keeps their baby alive and thriving. Keep up the good work!

Cari

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