Food allergies are a hot topic in America. From peanut bans in public schools to the rising popularity of gluten-free food, it seems that everyone has an opinion on what causes allergies and how to treat them. The parent of an infant who seems to be having an allergic reaction, however, just wants their child to feel better. The solution may be as simple as a change in a mother’s diet or choice of baby formula, so there is no reason for a child to suffer.
More Than Just Colic: Newborns at Risk
A colicky, fussy breastfed baby many be suffering from food allergies. It sounds counter-intuitive when a newborn is eating only breastmilk, but a surprising number of foods in a mother’s diet can be passed to the child through breastfeeding. According to BabyMed, it’s not uncommon for babies to be allergic to:
- dairy products, especially milk or milk proteins, are the most common food allergen
- soy products, especially soy proteins
- nuts, including tree nuts or peanuts
- eggs
- fish
- shellfish
- wheat
If you suspect food allergies are upsetting your child, it’s best to see your pediatrician first. They may want to rule out other possibilities first, and can advise you on the process for determining whether your infant suffers from allergies. It is particularly important if you suspect that your infant might be allergic to eggs, because an egg allergy requires doctors take special steps during vaccinations. You don’t want to jump to conclusions and remove foods unnecessarily from your diet; according to baby expert Dr. Sears, withholding foods from a mother’s diet can actually cause an allergy later in life if the child is not already allergic.
A Simple Test May Help
Most of the time, a simple test will be to remove some or all of the common allergens from a breastfeeding mother’s diet to see if that helps the infant settle and reduces or eliminates symptoms. This may require a process of gradually re-adding foods and checking the child for reactions. For example, some infants are allergic to foods that contain soy proteins but not soy lecithin. Careful editing of a mother’s diet can reveal the fine details of allergies. If the infant is having severe reactions or it’s otherwise not possible to take the days or weeks to test a modified diet, it is possible to do allergy testing on infants.
Fortunately, most children are not allergic to all of those things. One or two allergies are the most common, and so it’s likely that the easiest way to treat them would be for a breastfeeding mother to cut the offending foods out of her own diet. This may be easier for some allergens than others – soy is particularly good at showing up in foods where you would not expect to find it, while shellfish is generally easier to avoid.
Choosing to adapt your own diet to your child’s needs allows parents to continue breastfeeding if that is their priority. It may also be less expensive, depending on the kind of formula you would be choosing as an alternative. However, specialty diets may require more expensive substitutions; avoiding wheat or dairy is becoming easier, but alternative products on the market are not cheap. It’s important to do the math and see whether formula is really more expensive than a special diet.
When All Else Fails, Baby Formula to the Rescue
While most parents will tell you they would prefer to breastfeed their new infants, there are many reasons why this may not be possible. If it seems like the infant is allergic to a large number of foods, or to specific foods that you cannot give up eating, then baby formula may be the most practical choice.
Given the vast range of possible reasons to supplement or replace breastmilk with formula, it’s important to get over the stigma that surrounds formula feeding and discuss frankly what the best options are for families and infants. If the reason is not about allergies, it may be as simple as a mother having to return to work immediately, or a child who is being adopted. Sometimes medical issues prevent mothers from breastfeeding. None of these reasons should be seen as shameful.
Because formula feeding is so widespread for so many different reasons, there are a variety of baby formula options on the market, and there are some—available through companies like Honest—that are certified allergen-free. Depending on your infant’s allergy, you may be able to choose from all of them or only a limited number. Make sure you’ve discussed formula choices with your doctor and gotten a recommendation. Dairy and soy protein allergies in particular can limit your formula choices.
Regardless, the best formulas are patterned after breast milk. It’s important to make sure your infant is getting as many of the same benefits as is possible. Choose a formula the same way you would choose anything else for your child – you want something that is safe, healthy and the best you can afford.
While food allergies can be extremely scary in infants, the truth is that most are not life threatening. Caught in a timely manner, they can often be treated simply by adjusting a mother’s diet or switching to a safe formula. Fortunately, many infant food allergies fade or improve over time, so by the time your child is ready to eat solid food, that allergy to cow’s milk or soy protein may be a thing of the past.