All 3 of my babies have had varying degrees of allergies or sensitivities to foods I eat while I’m breastfeeding. 2 of the 3 have grown out of those sensitivities as they got older. I want to share my experience with this so someone else out there in the world will know they aren’t crazy, and it could be happening to your baby too.
Did you know a baby can have an allergic reaction to a food you eat? Neither did I. In fact, I was told it didn’t matter what a mother eats, the milk she produces is the same, regardless.
You can watch here or continue reading below.
To start my story, we need to go back 7 years to when my first son was born. He was a sensitive, fussy, even colicky baby. The first unusual thing I noticed about him was how much gas he had in the first few weeks of life. Not just lots of farts, I mean hard tummy, squirmy, painful gas.
After a few weeks of just assuming it was an immature digestive tract that he’d grow out of, I really started to worry. Also, unrelated I thought, Eli had eczema. The pediatrician gave us lotion and thought nothing of it. My baby also spit up constantly. Lots. The Dr. assured me this is normal for babies.
Luckily at the time, I discovered youtube to get me through loooong nights awake with my baby.
I watched countless videos of moms sharing their lives. One of these moms mentioned her baby’s milk protein allergy through her breastmilk.
A lightbulb went on.
Then another mom I found talked openly about the same thing and even shared her dairy free recipes on her channel.
So I decided to give it a try and cut it out of my diet.
Within 2 days his spitting up dramatically decreased. His gas eased up and his eczema patches even started to clear.
Eli was still a fussy baby though. It didn’t cure everything.
Then 2 ½ years later, my second child is born.
Right away I decided to assume she would also have the sensitivity, so I cut out dairy at birth. She was a much more content baby and had perfectly smooth skin without any signs of eczema, but she seemed to have a lot of gas as well, or at least moments of fussiness that I couldn’t explain, so I assumed gas.
To be honest, I don’t remember much about this first year of my daughters life because #postpartumdepression. I’ll talk more about that in the future. But I do know that at a certain point I cut out all the most common allergens for babies to see if anything was affecting her. And like I said, I really don’t remember anything else about it.
Alright so now we’re about caught up, I had my 3rd baby 9 months ago.
I decided to eat normally and see how he was. Almost immediately I knew something was up. Just a few days in and baby acne started to appear on his cheeks. I know this can be normal but my gut told me to keep an eye on it. Within his first 2 weeks the “acne” spread over his entire body. His poor little fingers had it, down his arms and legs and around his ankles. The bumps started to blend together and form eczema patches. He was also my most fussy newborn. He cried so much from the day he was born, and he spit up or had wet burps all the time.
Nursing was a big struggle this time around and he didn’t seem to like eating. He was just generally unhappy and obviously uncomfortable. I cut out diary and the rash started to get better slowly. At 4 weeks I ate something with soy sauce and the next morning he was spitting up so I decided to cut that out too. His rash had just about cleared up but there was still “acne” on his cheeks. Since he was still sooo fussy I decided it wouldn’t hurt to cut out gluten and eggs too to be safe. Right away the rash on his face disappeared and he was noticeably happier. The spitting up ended and the wet burps were very seldom.
I thought we had finally gotten it all and I was amazed at the change I had seen after removing each allergen. Then at 3 months old he had this very strange, week-long, episode of crying. He screamed and cried all night long for 3 days so we took him into a chiropractor. Apparently, something was out in his back, but we were assured this adjustment would stop the all-night crying. It didn’t. We went back again 2 days later. At this time, I mentioned his allergies and wondered if there was anything else, I could take out of my diet. This particular chiropractor didn’t believe in food allergies through breastmilk and kinda laughed. He said breastmilk is the same product no matter what I eat. Unless I eat a lot of garlic, he said, and then it will taste like garlic…. 🤦
(which is true, by the way. But if our milk can *taste* like the food we’re eating, why can’t the proteins enter the milk? hmm?)
The next day after being up all night with a screaming baby again, we went to see a doctor. We only take our kids to a doctor if it’s really something serious. This Dr. was amazing with our baby and very thorough but found nothing wrong except a HUGE amount of gas in his poor little body. He told us all the crying was causing the gas, and it was creating a vicious cycle of pain and more crying and more gas. He couldn’t tell us what the initial cause was but DID NOT believe it could be anything I was eating.
He too didn’t believe in food allergies through breastmilk.
We ended up stopping the cycle of gas and crying by doing massage, more chiropractic care, and these hylands colic tablets.
Then around 6 months, I still felt like he was occasionally gassy, and we couldn’t explain it. He was taking those colic tablets, daily. His face always seemed to be itchy too and I didn’t know if it was related. I started keeping a food journal and praying about it and I specifically felt like I received the answer of, CORN. So, I took that out too.
We’ve had a few accidents with allergens ending up in my food or our baby putting something he can’t have in his mouth (now that he is mobile and into everything) and he has obvious reactions. Within 12 hours or so his eczema patches come back, he throws up 2 or 3 times, and has reflux type symptoms for about 3 days. He’ll get gas really bad and doesn’t sleep 😉
Even with small amounts, he has the same huge reaction. I have a feeling he won’t be growing out of this like my other kids did, which is kinda sad.
So that’s my story! I just want it out there so other moms going through this will know they aren’t crazy.
Trust your gut.
Trust the thousands of other moms out there.
Check out these websites. They gave me the validation I needed.
https://kellymom.com/health/baby-health/food-sensitivity/
Specifically, this one
https://www.thelactationnutritionist.com/post/2017/06/14/food-sensitivities-in-breastfed-babies
“Yeah, we used to think the food mom eats doesn’t affect her breast milk. We used to think colic, eczema and spit ups were normal in babies, and that it would just go away by itself…..But now we know better. Now we have studies, scientific evidence, and oh-so-many testimonies to prove: The food mom eats DOES affect her milk, and babies CAN be sensitive to a food in mom’s diet!”
For me, I could see a reaction in my baby when I ate any dairy (milk, ice cream, cheese, yogurt, butter etc.), soy, egg, gluten, and corn (corn syrup, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup).
It’s a lot to keep track of but it’s so worth it to help my baby feel better.
I hope you found this helpful! If you know another mama that could use this info, please share!
Peace.
