nele

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and I'll just tell my story here.
I have a son who is allergic to cow's milk (dairy), soy, potato, fish, wheat and other gluten containing grains, eggs and orange.
He is now over 13 months old and I am still breastfeeding him.
I am not eating whatever he is allergic to. And since I left all his allergens out of my diet (he was about 3 or 4 months old), I have hardly seen any allergic reaction.

It has not been easy to maintain this diet, it has taken a lot of getting used to, accompanied by frustrations and a period of physical weakness. But now I feel strong again and I feel like I have the courage (and the will) to keep this up until my boy is 2 years old.
And I am really hoping and praying that any next children will not have allergies.

For the people who are re-introducing milk to their child, to see if he or she has outgrown the milk allergy, I would suggest to try the re-introduction by organic dairy. That's what I will be doing, when the doctor says it is time to try and re-introduce milk.
Because as a breastfeeding mother, I am well aware that whatever I eat, ends up in my breastmilk. Any mistake I make in my diet, I get to experience the result on my son's skin, luckily just a very mild reaction like some redness. Sometimes he gets some cramps as well, not too serious.

With cow's milk, it's just the same, whatever they eat, ends up in their milk, and since they feed regular milking cows as cheap as possible, and with food that enhances the amount of milk produced, the quality of the milk goes down.
Organically fed cows get to eat healthier food and their milkproduction is lower on average, but the quality of their milk is much better. It is not contaminated by any chemicals that came from the cow's food, and they are not full-up on medication and hormones as well.

My doctor believes that people consume too much dairy products, and the dairy is also of low health quality. And this may be one of the reasons why so many children are born with milk allergy,
I have read a text on a study, where a big group of pregnant women used mainly organic food, and another group ate regular food. And the percentage of children born with allergies was significantly lower in the group who consumed mainly organic products.

If and when I get pregnant again, I will try to eat mainly organic food, perhaps then the next baby will not have allergies. If it has allergies anyway, I can't blame myself because I have tried my best.
But if I don't try eating organic food and the baby is born also with allergies, I don't think that I will be able to forgive myself for that. Not while I knew this information

Me breastfeeding my child even if it means to be on a diet myself, is also because I am convinced that breastmilk really helps prevent any further developing of allergies.
For example, most children with the allergies my son has, develop fairly quickly asthma or pollen allergy, but my son does not have these allergies.
The doctor even believes that he will outgrow his soy allergy within months, and his other allergies within 2 to 3 years. And the longer I breastfeed my child, the faster he might outgrow his allergies.
Last month she advised me to consider stopping breastfeeding (for my sake, not the child's), but I am persistant. I'm not giving up just now that I got used to it (I even make jokes about it sometimes) and my body has also adapted to the diet.

So you see, anything's possible if you just set your mind to it.
To all other breastfeeding mothers with allergic baby's: do not give up! I know you can do it because I did it for over 8 months already, and it's still getting better every month.
You just gotta be persistant, and overcome the physical weakness in the first 3 to 4 months. From then on, it's only getting easier.
Recipes can be found allover the internet and in books.
And it's a good way of losing that extra weight as well, if you have any ;)

Greetz

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Jill

How on earth did you determine all of those? I have tried elimination diets, few food diet, etc. and my baby persists with blood and mucous. I know she reacts to cow's milk in my diet, and to much more but I am desperate to figure out what else. I don't want stop breastfeeding at all.

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Theresa

To find out what what your child is allergic to is a bit of a process. Eliminate something from your diet and see if the baby improves. Janna improved when I eliminated milk, soy, fish, eggs and nuts. I took out all gassy foods because she had problems with those as well. The one thing that I hadn't taken out was the grains. If I had she would have done great. It can take awhile because it will take ujp to two weeks for some foods to leave your system. If you think that something is okay you can try it again later after your baby gets well.

Try eliminating grains as well as the milk and soy. Make sure that you read labels, even bread has soy. Tuna in water is actually packed in soy broth. You can find tuna in water, usually gourmet tunas but make sure to read labels! The diet Janna is on now is no soy, milk, grains, or fruit. I know what brands she can have and which ones she cannot. Remember that there are alternate names for things. Milk is cassien, whey, and lactose. Grains are in modified food starch. Soy has a lot of different words added to it but soy is soy. Soy sauce, soy lecethin(like in chocolate) it is all soy. Just keep trying and you will find out what is up!

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nele

To find out what your child is allergic to, you have to make a blood test, or at least a skin test, but a combination is best, because the results from both tests can confirm eachother.
That's what they did with my son.
And if the doctor is hesitant about blood tests on small children, if he or she says the child is too small and the results will not be clear enough, that's not true. My son was less then 4 months when they did the first blood test, they can be done at any age really. Perhaps not in the past, but you now, technology advances fast.

In december 2008, they did new tests on my son (at the age of 1 year and 5 months), to see if any progress has been made. And to the surprise of my doctor, he already outgrew 2 allergies (soy and fish), and all other allergies are way down, they could be gone in a matter of months if it continues like this. Yay! [:D]

I still breastfeed him and continue the diet on the both of us (except soy and fish now ;) ), and I'm keeping it very strictly too, no cheating. And look, I got the reward from it :)
The doctor said that usually, children start to outgrow their allergies around 2 years, and perhaps around 5 or 6 years, they will completely have outgrown the allergies, if everything goes well.
At first, she (the doctor) said I don't have to keep my personal diet very strict, because it has to be manageable for me to live a bit of a normal life. And I don't have to keep breastfeeding for so long, because it would be difficult for me to maintain the diet for so long.
But I did it anyway and was very strict about it too. And I really do believe that's why my son outgrows his allergies so very fast. Even the doctor was very surprised.

I have good hopes, if I keep it up and breastfeed a full 2 years, that my son won't have any more allergies by the time he starts going to school. And that's very important to me. He should not have to suffer from allergies and abstain from treats and different kinds of food, while all his friends and classmates can eat just about anything they want, right in front of him.

I hope my story can help to give hope to other breastfeeding mums with allergic baby's, to give them a certain kind of mindset, so the children can receive full benefit of that.

Greetings,
Nele

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Theresa

I know that allergies are something that most children outgrow but my daughter has Allergic Enterocolitis. We tried her on grains at 18 months and she got the cronic diahreah and severe anemia again. That is why she is on such a strict diet. I know it is hard for her to not be able to eat everything the other children at day care can eat but I make sure that she has special treats too. I know that breastfeeding is best but I had several problems and after my nipples started tearing because of the pumping (Janna could not latch on) and I had to stop pumping.

I think it is great that your son is doing so well. I hope he continues but for those of us out there who are dealing with long term allergy problems, well all we can do is teach our children and make sure they have special treats too.

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