Lactose Intolerant Newborn

My son has problems with lactose as well. I cut out all dairy in my diet so I could continue breastfeeding. That seemed to work fine. It was hard for me because I love dairy, but it was worth it for him. He's a little older and I've stopped breastfeeding. He drinks the Similac soy formula. I know other responses say that it causes gassiness, but he hasn't had any problems with it. Good luck!

Go with SENSITIVE my friend used soy and soy is a bean and her little girl screamed with gas pains for MONTHS AND MONTHS!!! I don't think she got over it until she was over 9 or 10 months old! I hope her little girl feels better and formula's have lactose to unless it specifies lactose free!!! Hope this helps!
*M.*

Enfamil Soy or Lactose Free. Had my son on it and he loved it! He has since grown out of that intolerance--there is hope!

No offense, but have her get a second opinion. It is extremely rare for an infant to be allergic to breastmilk itself, only various things the mother is consuming, i.e., nuts, wheat, soy, dairy, gluten, etc. The lactose in human breastmilk is encapsulated much differently than that of cow milk, not to mention being composed differently, so it is easier for humans to digest. Just please make sure both your SIL and her doc have their facts straight before giving up breastfeeding and putting an infant on formula. Good luck to her!

Both of my children were lactose intolerant. I put them both on Soy formula. One at 3 months the other I new sooner so around 6 weeks. I very successfully used Enfamil (Prosobee LIPIL)soy formula. My son grew out of his allergy around his 1st b'day (most common) my daughter is 2 & 1/2 and is still on soy milk. They both are VERY healthy and extreamly smart. Not breastfeeding them did not sell them short in anyway. It was hard for me emotionally, however once we made the switch with my son he was a new baby. No longer colicy and miserable. Slept like a champ and was a happy little guy!
Good luck to your SIL.

Please try and stick to breastfeeding. My sister in law went through the same thing when it came to her daughter's food allergies. The biggest thing she regretted was switching to formula - there wasn't a formula that didn't effect her! Please read this link about lactose intolerance in infants and get a second opinion (perhaps from a LLL leader or a Board Certified Lactation Consultant - I have a wonderful recommendation if you are interested, email me if you'd like her information.)

http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/food-sensitivity.htm...

M.,
Before your SIL stops breastfeeding, she may want to determine if there are other foods that are bothering her child. I have a friend whose child could not tolerate dairy or wheat. Her mom eliminated those items from her diet and the nursing continued just fine. In addition,, the test for lactose intolerance for babies under 3 months is generally unreliable, as most babies will test positive. True lactose intolerance is rare and would have resulted in failure to thrive almost immediately after birth. I have included a link below and would suggest your SIL contact a local La Leche League or Breastfeeding specialist to determine how to get through this difficult time.
http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfinfo/lactose.html

Good Luck!
T.

My daughter was also lactose intolerant. She was ok on breastmilk, but she was 3 months early and my milk ran out before she came home from the NICU. They sent her home on Enfamil and it was horrible. She absolutely could NOT tolerate it. We switched to Similic Isomil Advance and the can says that it works in 3 days and I swear it seemed more like 3 hours. It was the first time she actually drank her entire bottle without fighting us. If it was me, I would use the Soy. Good luck, and I hope this helps them out!

M.
Breast milk does not have lactose in it. If she is thinking he is lactose intolerant from breastfeeding she needs to look further - that is not it! I have 4 children all lactose intolerant. When I switched them to formula I used lactose free Enfamil, all brands have one. I would recommend researching soy. It caused a lot of problems with my children and I would stay away from it.
Good luck! You may be lucky, mine only need lactose free milk and can eat everything else :)
T.

human lactose & animal lactose are different in composition and digestion. additionally, soy is a major allergen. has she talked to a lactation consultant and nutritionist? the pump station is an excellent resource. not sure if shes explored all those options, but formula can create a new set of problems.

Please don't don't don't don't give baby soy formula. I wish someone had told me this before I have it to my daughter but it causes HORRIBLE constipation in babies. So bad that we had to do enemas for a few days to clean it all out and it was hard like rocks! We now give baby Similac alimentum formula and she does wonderful with it. Good luck and stay away from the soy!

Hi M.: Your SIL does NOT have to give up breastfeeding her lactose intolerant newborn. Breast milk is the best thing for him. What she needs to do is cut out ALL dairy from her diet and this is very hard to do. Milk is in many things. My 5th baby was lactose intolerant and I had to give up all dairy foods and even had to watch my beef intake as that is dairy, too. Have her talk to her pediatrician about it. I nursed my daughter till she was 11 months old when she self-weaned. She still can't tolerate dairy products and I hope she'll outgrow it. Good luck to your SIL.

I think the breastmilk only has lactose if the mom drinks milk. My younger son was lactose intolerant, and when I went off all dairy, he was fine. I agree that sticking with breastmilk is best for the baby. Although when we did need to supplement we used Similac's lactose-free formula and that worked fine.

I would strongly urge your SIL NOT to stop breastfeeding. This is the best defense to build up his digest system. It can take up to a month to completely rid dairy out of her system. She shouldn't expect changes in only a few days. Both of my children are lactose intolerant but once I removed ALL forms of dairy from my diet they were fine. My son is actually anaphylactic to dairy but I've been able to nurse him for over 2yrs. She needs to be aware of the other names/terms for dairy when reading labels: casein, lactose, lactalbumin, whey or whey solids. I'll admit it is a huge sacrifice to be cautious of what I eat but my children are woth it. In the long run I know their immune and digestive systems are better off.

Please be aware there is a great increase of newborns being sensitive to dairy which can aggrevate colic. But this doesn't mean it is a permanent condition. The odds are high that the child will outgrow this. Newborns have a virgin gut which can be easily aggravated by certain foods including citrus and grains. There is actually a 4th trimester many parents aren't aware of. This refers to the first three months of life outside the womb. In this time the newborn is settling into the world around them, and their immune/digestive systems are adjusting. I'd hate for your SIL to stop nursing only to discover in a few months he has outgrown the sensitivity. I would urge her to continue nursing for a few more weeks before making a decision. Also, my kids see a chiropractor on a regular basis and this helped greatly with their food allergies.

These explain importance of breastfeeding with allergies and diet changes:
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/T041800.asp
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/t041200.asp

My daughter had the same problem. My pediatrician really worked with me to keep nursing. I gave up EVERYTHING! Dairy, wheat, soy, etc. I was eating a strictly vegan diet and nothing helped my daughter. My ped said that there are circumstances when a baby just can not tolerate breast milk. He said he has only asked one mom to stop nursing and I was the second. He had me put my daughter on Enfamil Neutramagin (I think Similac's version is Alumentum) and that did wonders for my daughter. It's hypoallergenic formula and it really helped her. She had severe colic and broke out into a rash every time I fed her until I put her on that formula. I highly recommend that. Definitely tell her to consult with her pediatrician before she does anything as he/she can help her make a decision that will work best for her and the baby.

Hi my daughter was like that as an infant. We used the Similaic soy. We used it for a little past her 1st b-day. She was given 1% milk by a an aunt by mistake, there were no problems and her Dr said she had outgrown the lactose problems. She's 3 now and drinks 1% milk w/ no problems. We had little to no problems w/ the similiac soy.

Similac soy work so well for my daughter. I tried everything under the sun.

Hi M.,

Please tell your SIL that making this move will be one of the hardest things she does as a mom and whatever she decides she should feel comfortable. My daughter was diagnosed with a diary allergy at 2 1/2 months. She is so sensitive that even breast milk made her ill. (My pediatrician is a lactation specialist and gave me a lot of support initially on my diet so we could continue to breast feed. I also saw a nutritionist.) She thrived on Similac Soy formula, although for my little one it had to be ready made. The hard part of the decision isn't which formula-she should keep trying the lactose free ones until she finds one her son will drink and can tolerate. The hard part about the diagnosis is the all the "Breast is Best" people who will tell you how wrong you are, give you looks when you feed your baby a bottle, question your doctor... The first 5 or 6 months of feeding my daughter formula were miserable for me. I was afraid to feed her in public. You can tell by the responses here already that I'm not making this up. There are just some fanatics, for want of a better word, who won't recognize the breast isn't always best for all babies. When I finally stopped and thought about it, I realized my once sickly, tiny baby was a thriving, healthy baby because she was eating food she could tolerate and I got over my fears and faced those "Breast is Best" people head on.

One other thing, we also saw Dr. Cynamon, a pediatric GI specialist, because my daughter's liver numbers were bad. He never told me I had to continue breast feeding her. He was thrilled with the progress she made on the soy formula. We first went to him with a nearly 3 month old who barely weighed 10 pounds and was malnourished. After 3 months, we were no longer patients of his because her liver numbers were normal and she had gained nearly 10 pounds. Dr. Cynamon was please with her progress and remained supportive of our decision to feed her soy formula.

My only other recommendation would be to make sure he's lactose intolerant and doesn't have a diary allergy. With a diary allergy you need to avoid diary foods, but with lactose intolerant you want to find ways to continue to introduce diary. Lactose intolerance gets worse when you avoid diary products. Most lactose intolerant individuals avoid drinking milk, but can handle cheese or yogurt as well as the baked goods with diary in them.

Good luck. And again, the important thing is that your SIL find a feeding method that works for her and her son.

K.

When babies have a sensitivity to breastmilk, it usually means they are having trouble digesting a certain protein in their mother's milk. This happened to my daughter when she was six week's old and we saw a pediatric GI specialist at Cedar Sinai, Dr, Cinnamon. He said that the baby will adjust as it grows older, and the absolute best choice is breast-feeding, as by switching to formula, a sensitive baby will have much greater trouble digesting formula. Breast-milk is always easier on the stomach. It is very normal for newborns to have GI challenges until about 12 weeks old. So try to make it a couple more weeks, and I know things will improve for the baby and mother. Good Luck, R. mother to five and nine year old kids.

Hi there,

My son had protein intolerance as a baby as well as a fructose intolerance. His pediatrician is the one who reccommended a formula called Alimentum.

I'm sure you'll get ideas from others, however it is always best to get the advice form a doctor.

She needs to research lactose and breastmilk. Pretty sure it is either not in breastmilk or not the same as animal lactose. I would highly recommend her looking into it further before she gives up on breastfeeding. She may need to alter her dairy intake, but her milk should not be a problem for the baby. In fact when you have a baby with allergies or health conditions, breast milk is the BEST thing you can give them. Formula can introduce a whole new set of problems. My twins were born at 28 weeks and all 3 of my kids have milk allergies. I breastfed all of them and currently am still bf my 13 1/2 month old. My twins have outgrown their milk/soy issues and I really think breastfeeding was the best thing I could do for them. Good luck to her.

M.,

It is extremely rare unless a newborn has a very rare metabolic condition for a baby to be lactose intolerant. They are typically sensitive to cow's milk proteins. Depending on how sensitive the baby is, eliminating obvious dairy from the diet may not be enough. My now 20 month old is very sensitive to dairy so I had to eliminate all obvious dairy and any dairy hidden in other foods (read every label). My son has the added bonus of being equally sensitive to soy. Avoiding soy is actually harder than avoiding dairy because it is hidden everywhere. It isn't unusual for a baby to be sensitive to both dairy and soy because the proteins are very similar. My biggest suggestion is to look at this website: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/8/t083301.asp figure out based on her diet which of these foods are the most likely culprit, and eliminate those. If, at the end of a week, her baby isn't better, she's either not eliminating enough foods or she isn't effectively eliminated the ones she's eliminating. Once I did that, my son was dramatically better after about a week and he was a whole new baby after about a month (a happy, sleeping baby).

The problem with just switching to formula is that if the baby doesn't tolerate formula, you run out of options really quickly and just have a sick baby on your hands. At least with breastfeeding, you have the option of tweaking your diet until you get it right.

The easiest way to do an elimination diet is to switch to "whole" foods - meats, beans, potatoes, rice, veggies, fruit. The more processed stuff is, the more likely it has things in it you are trying to avoid.

But, just in general, if she's determined to go the formula route, Similac Alimentum is the first level of hypoallergenic formula and the one I'd recommend she try first. If that doesn't work, the next level of hypoallergenic is Neocate or Elecare and she'd have to special order it from a pharmacy or get it online.

If she wants more info on elimination diets, have her email me at teralee999 at hotmail dot com. It is a bit of work but it is very worth it to have a healthy, happy baby.

:-)T.

Get a second opinion! I have a hard time believing formula is better than breast. There is probably something she is eating. Maybe wheat or soy should be exluded from her diet as well. What area are you in? She should go see a nautrapathic doctor or a holistic practitioner. She could start taking acidopholis (spelling?), its probiotic, and or giving it to her hil that might help digest the milk. My son is lactose intolrant as well and he takes when he eats ice cream or dairy and it helps him very well. You can get it in the cold section at any health food store. Whole foods/Henrys/ Tell her to try as many different things before she gives up, but this is perfectly safe to give to an infant or even take herself. It's the same stuff in yogurt (the good bacteria) but without the dairy. He coud also be lacking the enyme needd to break the protein down. But I am not sure what enzyme she would need to give him in order to do that. I am sure someone who wokred at a health food store could help her. Also an acupuncturist might be able to tell her what enzyme she can give him. If you are in San Diego I could give you lots of referrals for people who practice alternative medicine.
Hope she does well.

Hi M., your SIL may want to check out www.askdrsears.com. A gold mine of information on allergies, nutrition and immune systems. I think it will be very helpful. Best wishes and I'd love to hear if Dr. Sears' site was helpful.
Have a blessed day,
:)D.
www.JPHealth4U.com

Sorry this is so long but there is all lot of helpful information for breastfeeding with an allergy and formula. If she truly wants to continue breastfeeding it is not necessary to stop breastfeeding, but I will admit it can be challenging and because I had to go through the same measures I can attest it is difficult. My son was diagnosed with a milk protein allergy at 10 weeks and rather than switching to formula I took other steps. From the extensive research that I did, babies are actually not lactose intolerant rather they can form a milk protein allergy. A number of kids outgrow this allergy by age 1 and an even greater number by age 5. The children are allergic to the protein found in cow's milk which is different than being lactose intolerant. The pediatrician that I saw for the day insisted that I had to stop breastfeeding but when I called the lactation specialists at Hoag hospital they assured me that I could continue by taking various measures. 1- I had to stop all dairy products (even processed products i.e. yogurt, cheese, items found in already made produts such as Chex Mix, chocolate) for 1 week. 2- Once the milk/products were out of my system I was able to slowly reintroduce items one at a time. You start with a small serving of yogurt once a day. Yogurt has a lot of bacteria that "kills" the protein and therefore is the most processed product. I waited about a week to see if there were any symptoms. My son could not even handle the yogurt so I stopped all direct sources of dairy. I did however introduce some products that contained dairy. I love chocolate so that was very difficult to give up but after time I did introduce small amounts in my diet. Again I will say it was very difficult because you would be amazed at all the products that contain dairy. Eventually I was able to introduce items such as Chex Mix but couldn't introduce yogurt back into my diet until he was 11 months and even now we are taking things slow. He is now 12 1/2 months and so far he has been able to eat yogurt and cheese and we are constantly at the doctors to check for any sign/symptoms. 3- If she decides to take the formula route (and no one should judge her because trust me the other route can be rough and until they try it for a day they have no right to say anything) have her be careful with soy based formula. For a child who truly has a milk protein allergy sometimes soy can also present itself as an allergy. Our GI specialist recommended Similac Alimentum. 4- As a word of encouragement I made it 12 months with about 9 months being dairy free. PS I love food so giving up cheese was a sad day for me. GOOD LUCK!!!

My youngest, who is now 1, was never actually determined if she was lactose intolerant or had a milk allergy, however, she didn't tolerate BM or regular formula at all. She was on Nutramigen. It is so expensive, but I would buy like 12 at a time on EBay! Sounds weird, I know, but it's about 10$ a jar cheaper on there than in the stores! Good luck!

I used enfamil prosobee lipil for infants...it was wonderful!
And my boys never had any reflux problems since we started them on this fromula. good luck

My son was lactose intolerant and we gave him the simulac Soy and he was fine after that. breat milk is the best but in this case the soy is great.

I would highly recommened "Nature's Best Organic Soy" formula. Over 60% of soybeans in the U.S. (from what I read and researched) are genetically engineered. So, if you have to give soy - give organic. My son was on Nature's Best and did great. He is a thriving, advanced and healthy 15 month old now!! (started him on it at 3 months)....
Good luck! :)

M.:

Contact a Lactation Consultant before giving up on breastmilk. If the infant is truly intolerant of the milk protein there is a medication the mother can add to her diet to break down the protein before it gets to the baby. My baby was allergic to milk and I was able to breast feed for 13 months.

Wow! This sounds so strange! Did a doctor tell her this?

My son was severely lactose intolerant and was fortunate that I was breastfeeding him since that is the only solution! The doctor had ME stop eating/drinking animal milk/cheeses and peanut butter (another of my son's allergies) and then everything was fine.

I wish you the very best,

M.

Our DD was lactose sensitive but not necesarily intolerant we used the gentlelease formula from infamil with great success. But you SIL should still be able to BF breast milk is not like cows milk there may be other reasons for her LO's issues

I just went through this and am still continuing to deal with this, here was my post:
http://www.mamasource.com/request/4473054014912593921

Your sister can continue to breastfeed, but it takes a huge commitment on her part to cut out all dairy. It's really hard, one doc even said, "if your having a hard time just put [your son] on formula." :(
Have her find out if it is lactose or the milk protein, casein. Also the severity will judge how close she'll have to watch the labels (most BREAD has milk in it). Some babies have blood in their stool, mine son just gets really gassy...

My sister had to use a soy formula. I don't think the brand mattered as far as my neice was concerned, but soy formula worked. Now that she is older, she drinks soy milk. Fortunately, she is able to eat cheese and other dairy products. Did you SIL try nursing without dairy herself? That was the only way my sister could nurse - no cheese, no halfnhalf in the coffee, nothing. Good luck with the soy!

Both my kids were lactose intolerant for the first 12 months. With my DS he was on Similac Soy (his foster parents fed him that but looking back I think it made him somewhat gassy), then at 12 months moved to regular Good Start with no problems and then later to whole milk. And now we drink rice milk all the time with no problems. With DD, I breastfed and after 3 months ended up giving breastfeeding her half the time and formula feeding her half the time. The moment we put her on regular Similac lactose formula she got very gassy and fussy. So we tried GoodStart regular and the same thing. Then we tried Similac Sensitive/Lactose free and she was fine. I got all the formula from our pediatrician (they always get free samples from the manufacturers so I would ask your ped for a few samples of different kinds before you fork out the money at the store).

I would definitely have your SIL talk to her pediatrician first.

Also talk to her lactation consultant before stopping breastfeeding. They are most times better at determining what could be causing weird reactions from breastmilk over pediatricians and OB's. It is very rare that a child has allergies to breastmilk so she may just have to eliminate something else from her diet that she hasn't thought of. It could be a simple fix is what I mean to say.

Hi M.-

Similac Sensitive Infant Formuals is lactose free. My 10 month old son is also lactose intolerant but does great on this formula. It is in an orange can.

Hi!

Do she have a lactation specialist in her area? If not, she can also consult La Leche League (http://www.llli.org)...they can give you expert advice over the phone. My understanding is that breast is best! (And once one starts formula, this can open up another big can of worms) My daughter had a dairy allergy when she was a newborn. I cut out all dairy from my diet and her problems disappeared within a week. As she got older, I slowly re-introduced dairy into my diet and she began to tolerate it fine.

Good Luck