Milk & Soy free formula?

[PE&M]

Molly is allergic to milk & we also suspect a soy allergy. She gets 3 bottles of fortified ebm daily. We were usuing nutramigen to fortify, but I see now that it contains soy.

What are the options for milk & soy free formulas?

[irangel]

a lot of kids who are allergic or sensitive to soy and dairy can get away with something like nutramigen where the proteins are more broken down. If not and you're noticing problems then your options are really only to switch to an amino acid based formula like Neocate or Elecare but those are outrageously expensive ($45-$50 a can) and available only with prescription.

[PE&M]

I'm thinking it must be the nutramigen.

I've been dairy free since July when we found out she had a milk allergy. She was still in the NICU then & they took her off hmf & started using nutramigen as fortifier. 3ish months ago her GI system went crazy. The ped said perhaps soy was a problem especially since I was having so much of it in place of dairy. After about 6 days of me being soy free, the difference was visable. The crying when passing gas or stooling stopped & her stools looked so much better. She also began sleeping better. This has been about 6 weeks. Then last week at her appt the ped suggested we fortify a few feedings again since she's just not growing. Now we're back to crying because of painful gas, yucky stools, and no sleep.

Coincidence?

[noahs.mom06]

What about fortifying with extra breastmilk fat? When I was skimming milk for DD I had lots of fat left over, and saved it to fortify later. Adding fat adds calories. It is SUPER easy to separate the milk... you could freeze the skim and use it later to make cereal or whatever.
All you need is a big syringe (60cc luer-lock or slip-tip) and an extra pump tube. Cut the pump tube to like 8 inches long, put it on the tip of the syringe. Put the EBM in the fridge and let it separate, like 6-8 hours (sometimes even 12 to get really good separation). Pull the plunger of the syringe back to get about 5 mL of air in it, then put the tip of the tube into the bottle while pushing the air out to keep the fat from getting into the tube. Then just draw up the skim milk from the bottom, and you'll be left with fat. Squirt the skim into another bottle. Sometimes you have to draw up more than once to get it so there's only fat left in the bottle. And it's about a million times easier if you are skimming from a wide-mouthed bottle (I used the Avent VIA containers to skim from). Then you just add the fat to the EBM, and you've got fortified EBM without soy or dairy (or formula at all!) (Those are the basic directions, if you wanted more detailed directions that I wrote up to give to the hospital to develop their protocol, send me a PM and I can email it to you!)
Oh, and I'd say it's no coincidence that there are issues associated with the formula. The dietician always gave me the line about the proteins being completely broken down, but Faith never tolerated *any* formula (we mainly tried Pregestimil and Elecare).

[Elisabethc]

When you say she isn't growing, is she not gaining any weight, or as much as they would like to see?

[PE&M]

She wasn't gaining any. For nearly 3 months she gained & lost the same 3 ounces.

We're putting safflower oil in 3 bottles each day & she has gained 2 ounces.

[jhowland]

our daughter has a dairy and soy allergy, along with a whole host of others that we are discovering. The elecare saved her life. she would have had to be on a TPN tube (total parenteral nutrition) if the elecare hadn't of worked. It is very expensive, you can purchase from abbott nutrition for just under $33 a can, but if you can get your doctor to issue a prescritption and send a letter to your insurance stating that it is medically necessary, your insurance should cover it. I think we are paying like $9 a can now with insurance helping out. They also had a toddler formula that we will be moving to in a few months because the only other thing she can drink is rice milk and it doesn't have the nutritional quality she needs to maintain her weight. It was most sincerely a life saver! if this is something that sticks with your kiddo for a while, there are a few good books, Sofie Safe Cooking and The Whole Foods Allergy Cook book that have wonderful recipes that are completely allergen free. Good luck, we feel your pain!