Is this a dairy intolerance? Something else?

[mambera]

It seems like there are a bunch of things going on with my 7 week old that could be normal but all together seem like maybe something is not right?  She is a very happy, easy, pleasant baby who was gaining weight well at her 1-mo checkup.

- Green poo about 1/3 of the time, not mucousy but only minimally seedy (like maybe 1-2 visible seeds per poo, sometimes none)

- Seems to spit up a lot - after most feedings will have about a tsp of spit-up (my ODD never spit up, this is new for me).  Doesn't seem uncomfortable.

- Constantly leaking tiny watery poos.  Like every few minutes all day long. My ODD never did this either (she had several creamy yellow poos daily).

- Congestion - she actually did have a cold for a while but she has been snurfing for days and days without any other cold sx anymore so I am starting to wonder if it is really just the tail end of the cold or not.

I am on day 3 of a dairy elimination diet but not sure if this is the issue, if there really is an issue at all, and when I should expect to see results.  (FWIW I'm pretty sure I do not have oversupply.)  Any thoughts appreciated.

[Megan73]

http://adc.bmj.com/content/92/10/902.full

I have not dealt with a cow's milk protein allergy - and tend to be suspicious of the zeal here to treat every infant complaint with limitations on mom's diet - but this article seems to have some useful info about diagnosis and treatment.
Congrats on your new baby!

[neonalee]

I did have over supply, over active letdown, & he had dairy sensitivities. Fun first baby LOL. Can you have OALD without the over supply? I don't know.... As for how long it takes to see a difference when eliminating dairy from your diet I think it was longer? A week? 3? I think it also depends on just how sensitive your LO is (if at all). Also, I found dairy protein in places I would have never expected so read all labels if you aren't already.

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[BabySmurf]

if the poop is just watery with no blood or mucus, my first instinct would be that it is some kind of virus....but I'm just a FTM.  watery meaning diarrhea, but lack of mucus meaning that there is no inflammation that would signify something more serious.

I had oversupply issues and dairy issues, and the poops started out normal but got frothy, wet, and bright green with the oversupply and mucusy and bloody with the dairy issue (which is way more common than they will tell you).  It did take us a full 4 weeks of totally eliminating all traces of dairy before DS's poop got normal (2 weeks to get out of my system and two more to get out of his).  He went from 6 small ucky green watery mucus poops per day to one yellow peanut butter - ish one every other day.  hth!

[mambera]

Originally Posted by Megan73 

http://adc.bmj.com/content/92/10/902.full
I have not dealt with a cow's milk protein allergy - and tend to be suspicious of the zeal here to treat every infant complaint with limitations on mom's diet - but this article seems to have some useful info about diagnosis and treatment.
Congrats on your new baby!

Thanks for the awesome link and for the congrats! 

They seem to be concentrating more on issues of true allergy rather than just intolerance though - I don't think DD is showing any signs of an atopic type of reaction.

I'm also suspicious of the dietary-intolerances-explain-everything approach but interestingly your BMJ article puts the incidence of cow's milk protein intolerance in infants at 5-15%, that's a lot higher than I would have thought actually.

Originally Posted by BabySmurf

if the poop is just watery with no blood or mucus, my first instinct would be that it is some kind of virus....but I'm just a FTM.

I don't think it's related to the cold because the poos have been this way almost since the beginning.  After the last meconium poo she went a whole day without pooping, then had 4-5 reasonably sized creamy yellow poos over the next 1.5 days.  After that we went to this pattern of constant tiny runny wet-farts and it has been that way ever since.

He went from 6 small ucky green watery mucus poops per day to one yellow peanut butter - ish one every other day.

Yes - I have heard this anecdotally from others as well, which is why I figured I would give this a shot.  On day 6 now and the snurfing has stopped (I really think that might have just been the cold though), no change in elimination habits yet but it sounds like I shouldn't expect to see one for a while yet.  OK will keep on keeping on.

[Megan73]

I'm glad the link was helpful - it was an interesting read. I think of myself as more evidence-based than crunchy, too, although it often leads me in a crunchy direction!
I'm wondering what you mean by "intolerant." Typically with milk we think of lactose intolerance. As you know, BM is packed with lactose and it's very rare for humans to be lactose intolerant in infancy. I've only heard of "allergies" to proteins like milk, soy, egg etc.and as you say there would typically be an atopic reaction, too.
It sounds like you've decide to just keep doing what you're doing - and that would be my instinct, too - but I was just curious. It's been my experience that both my babes have had weird digestive stuff - spitting up, odd poops - that just seemed to get better as their digestive tracts mature.

[mambera]

Originally Posted by Megan73 

I'm glad the link was helpful - it was an interesting read. I think of myself as more evidence-based than crunchy, too, although it often leads me in a crunchy direction!
I'm wondering what you mean by "intolerant." Typically with milk we think of lactose intolerance. As you know, BM is packed with lactose and it's very rare for humans to be lactose intolerant in infancy. I've only heard of "allergies" to proteins like milk, soy, egg etc.and as you say there would typically be an atopic reaction, too.

So I think intolerance is more a general term, where allergy refers specifically to an immune reaction.  So lactose intolerance is one kind of intolerance (probably the most common kind of intolerance to milk) but you could theoretically have an intolerance to any of a number of other components I guess.

But people do use the terms kind of loosely, and a brief shot to PubMed shows that someone felt the need to write a whole article about this distinction. :)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12487206?dopt=Abstract

It sounds like you've decide to just keep doing what you're doing - and that would be my instinct, too - but I was just curious. It's been my experience that both my babes have had weird digestive stuff - spitting up, odd poops - that just seemed to get better as their digestive tracts mature.

Yeah, I guess I am weirded out because my ODD never did any of that stuff - and actually she was supplemented 20-25% with formula and still had superb digestive habits.  Maybe she just inherited my iron digestive tract, whereas YDD may have gotten DH's more sensitive innards. :)

But I don't want her to be uncomfortable so I figure this is worth a shot.  As you say it may be that things just improve with gut maturity, in which case my planned add-back dairy challenge won't have any effect and I will be able to put the dairy back in my diet after that.

[rainface]

I was just going to come in here and ask this same question...My 6 week old LO has started spitting up a bunch about 2 weeks ago, without any distress and has had the watery, seedy poops from the beginning. Passes gas like a trooper. Most of the day she's cheerful, sleeps well, eats well. Then, for about 2 hours in the evening she is inconsolable and uncomfortable - wants to be upright, with act desperate to nurse, but then screams at my nipples, wants to be held and bounced. Sometimes she'll burp and calm down, and sometimes, no matter how I try, she can't burp. I'm thinking about cutting out dairy to see if it makes her more comfortable but I'm also suspicious of so many symptoms put on diet as I've read that her immature digestive system may need to just work through it. 

Also, I've heard the fore milk/hind milk imbalance can cause green poop, and her poop has become green. What do I do to fix this?

(Man, I haven't typed poop that many times in a post ever...)

[CookAMH]

It sounds like it certainly can be. It is often the first thing that people eliminate. My dd had an issue (and now has cradle cap at 8 mo which I think is her underlying reaction to my eating dairy though her poop and behavior is normal...we are gearing up to do the GAPS diet as a family in January and I am confident this will help her). She struggled with reflux early on, and reducing chocolate and OJ intake greatly helped. But I still couldn't have dairy, and it persisted for 4 mo with her reacting with discomfort if I trialed it. When I eliminated it around 2 weeks of age, it took a while for it to relieve her. I'm thinking a few weeks. Then, if I trialed it, it affected her but since I only had a little, it wasn't long before she was fine again once I removed it yet again. But having had it for weeks on end before her birth, that intial elimination took a while to get all out of my system. So, since you suspect this and have been off it, I'd keep up with it until things normalize for her. And if you suspect something else, I'd eliminate one thing at a time so you'll know what it was that alleviated her symptoms. But green mucousy poop is not normal poop.  It usually means a food issue.

My dd's symptoms were green poop, runny nose, infrequent poop, adult-smelling gas, her poop didn't have that breastfed baby poop smell, and fussiness. When her poops normalize in color and smelled like they should, I knew she was not reacting. And, I wouldn't think virus first at all. She's breastfed, at home a lot (right?) so it's very unlikely she'd be sick.

Originally Posted by neonalee 

Can you have OALD without the over supply? I don't know....

I have heard that yes, you can.  I actually did this summer. My baby struggled to gain weight well and part of the reason was tongue tie, but I also did not have an over abundant supply but we struggled a lot with forceful letdown.

I used to think people jumped too quickly to diet issues in mom, but considering the increasing prevalence of poor gut health in a lot of people, and the fact that babies get their guts from their mothers, I am not surprised that it is an increasing issue.  You can have a poor gut even if you haven't had antibiotics (but especially if you HAVE had antibiotics at any point in your life). I have come to understand too that sometimes, it's really the mother that reacts to something like dairy, and SHE has undigested food proteins leaking into her milk which baby reacts to. In my own life, I am only now noticing minor reactions to overconsumptoin of dairy (even raw) in my own digestive system. Also, I could have butter freely with her when I could not drink milk or kefir (supporting the proteins issue vs lactose intolerance as mentioned above...no protein in butter). So, I am not surprised if this theory is true for my daughter and I. It seems we have both settled to subdued reactions to dairy, but that isn't ok with me to accept as normal for us. Can't wait to see how GAPS will heal both of us.

Edited by CookAMH - 12/5/11 at 7:13pm

[WeasleyMum]

My baby (seven months) has dairy intolerance.  His main 'symptoms' were fussiness (esp. in the evening), 6-7 days between poops (this as a newborn), and stuffiness.  Once I cut out the dairy he stopped fussing, slept much better, started pooping every 1-4 days, and had no more stuffy nose.  So, the nose thing sounds similar, but the poop sounds way way different.  

The good thing about dietary issues is that they're easy to diagnose; a two-week purge of the food in question is usually enough to see a change, and there aren't any negative side effects (except not getting to eat said food).  It never hurts to check!  

BTW I kept eating butter and that didn't cause him any problems. 

[mambera]

OK so I cut out dairy for five weeks and then reintroduced.  No real change; her perianal rash did clear up but did not recur with reintroduction of dairy so I think it was just her skin maturing and becoming less delicate.  (I remember the same with ODD who always had very good stool.)  Still having daily green or green-brown stools that are usually mucousy and occasionally frothy.

Then today she had a long bout of screaming in the afternoon (very unusual as she is normally a super happy kid) and a couple streaks of red blood in the diaper this evening.

I ate a whole bunch of almonds yesterday, could that be it? I eat them regularly but not usually so many at a time.  ??

[mambera]

Hello again, I am just updating this thread in case it ever becomes useful to anyone out there in cyberworld.

So DD2 is intolerant to eggs in my diet.  I figured this out by going on a total elimination diet (chicken, rice, and apples) and adding foods back one at a time.  I have reintroduced eggs three times now and every time they result in various degrees of screaming and green, frothy, occasionally bloody poo.  Eggs are my main source of protein and I was very reluctant to eliminate them so I wanted to be sure.  I reintroduced them once as the sixth food in the elim diet (after apples, chicken, rice, bananas, and milk), then again two weeks later just to make sure.  Same result both times: crabby baby, green poo, froth, blood.

I then went two months with no eggs.  For those whole two months DD2 had lovely yellow seedy stool, no leaking poo with sneezes, and a super happy disposition (no evening crabby time even).  Then on Saturday morning I decided to try an egg again, thinking maybe her digestive system had just matured and I was skipping the eggs for nothing.  This resulted in a screaming fit on Saturday evening, green watery stool without seeds, poo leaking, and general crabbiness that lasted until Sunday night.  I feel like a jerk for pushing the envelope but at this point I'm pretty convinced it's the eggs.

I think I'm a convert to the food-intolerance theory of crabby babies.  I admit I used to think it was hippie hokum but I stand corrected.

Edited by mambera - 3/12/12 at 11:27am

[neonalee]

Thank you for updating! So often these are not. You are right it probably will help other mamas on their search!

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[purplerose]

nak.

i didn't think of eliminating eggs! i'm off dairy right now (sooo hard!!) bc my daughter had a few tiny streaks of blood a couple of times and has spiy up badly since birth (3 of my 4 kids were bad spitters). if i give up eggs i'll have nothing left LOL