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coconut and breastfeeding reaction

22K views 15 replies 9 participants last post by  Leilalu 
#1 ·
So, I think I may have narrowed the massive amounts of spit up my newborn has occasionally(sometimes frequently) to coconut.

he would spit up the whole meal, and I would have to feed all over again. I am pretty sure it is coconut.

So what should I do? is there anything similar I could be using for cooking/supplementation(for thyroid) until this passes? I Could I maybe do something differently and keep eating coconut? I think I do really well on it, and love to cook with it!

 
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#2 ·
I wish I had advise for you... I wanted to chime in to say that, although it's very uncommon, it IS possible to allergic to coconut. Even coconut oil. I am. It SUCKS.

I worshiped coconut... ate it, baked it, slathered it all over in lieu of lotion... and then I suddenly became allergic.

I would *guess* you might have a leaky gut. Otherwise the allergens don't pass through into breastmilk. Generally. Healing your gut would help (if you indeed have a problem), but it would take a while.

In the meantime... maybe digestive enzymes? They help your body break down the things you eat into the smallest bits. Bigger bits passing into your milk are what can cause trouble, so it *could* help.

How certain are you that coconut is the culprit? Pretty much anything can be an allergen, and for some people it takes a week or even two weeks to clear it out of the system in order to be certain.
 
#3 ·
No, I am not totally sure.


Just trying to figure it all out....we eat so healthy, this shouldn't be happening!


It is rather sporadic, so maybe it's just something that will pass? My other kids never spit up this much.
 
#4 ·
My newborn was spitting up a lot too -- I was worried about allergies, but then figured out the cause: overactive letdown. She was getting too much milk all at once, and couldn't handle it.

Re coconut -- my sister is allergic too, so it is possible. She gets a really queasy stomach after eating it.
 
#5 ·
My newborns all sporadically would spit up an entire meal as well. With each of them I never really figured out the cause, they simply outgrew it. If it were happening all the time I would have been worried, but even once/day didn't seem unreasonable to me - especially when the baby was fussy/tired, and dealing with a huge milk supply, etc.
 
#7 ·
thanks guys. I made coconut curry last night to test my theory- I was soooooo craving salmon coconut curry on quinoa.

He didn't spit up at all


so I think maybe it is overactive letdown.... just watch, I'll figure it out and he will stop.
 
#10 ·
Coconut is actually a pretty common allergen. Also, it's high in salicylates (a naturally occurring food chemical), and those pass through breastmilk regardless of how healthy your gut is. It's entirely possible that your babe is reacting to salicylates, and if he is it'll be hard to track down a "culprit", because there isn't one per se, it's when the cumulative amount of salicylates you're consuming get to be too much, then he'll react. So he might seem to react to coconut a few times, and then not react a few times, depending on how many salicylates you're eating in the rest of your diet. Salicylates are detoxed through the liver, and everyone has a finite ability to detoxify them--some people are truly sensitive, while others have normal tolerances but their diets are just too high in salicylates. A "healthy" TF diet tends to be very high in salicylates.

Anyhow, here's a couple of links that talk about food chemical intolerances, and a link that lists known salicylate contents of various foods. FWIW, my DD is sensitive to salicylates, and she can tolerate all the low salicylate foods, and maybe a serving or two a day of moderate salicylate foods. It wouldn't take much coconut to cause a salicylate reaction for her (aside from the fact that she actually is intolerant to coconut itself!).

www.plantpoisonsandrottenstuff.com www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~ataraxy/...ates_list.html

Oh, and you might try cooking with butter or ghee for a while and see what happens--if it is a salicylate problem, using palm oil instead of coconut oil won't help because it's also high in salicylates (butter/ghee doesn't have any).
 
#11 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by caedmyn View Post
Coconut is actually a pretty common allergen. Also, it's high in salicylates (a naturally occurring food chemical), and those pass through breastmilk regardless of how healthy your gut is. It's entirely possible that your babe is reacting to salicylates, and if he is it'll be hard to track down a "culprit", because there isn't one per se, it's when the cumulative amount of salicylates you're consuming get to be too much, then he'll react. So he might seem to react to coconut a few times, and then not react a few times, depending on how many salicylates you're eating in the rest of your diet. Salicylates are detoxed through the liver, and everyone has a finite ability to detoxify them--some people are truly sensitive, while others have normal tolerances but their diets are just too high in salicylates. A "healthy" TF diet tends to be very high in salicylates.

Anyhow, here's a couple of links that talk about food chemical intolerances, and a link that lists known salicylate contents of various foods. FWIW, my DD is sensitive to salicylates, and she can tolerate all the low salicylate foods, and maybe a serving or two a day of moderate salicylate foods. It wouldn't take much coconut to cause a salicylate reaction for her (aside from the fact that she actually is intolerant to coconut itself!).

www.plantpoisonsandrottenstuff.com www.fedupwithfoodadditives.info
http://www.zipworld.com.au/~ataraxy/Salicylates_list.html

Oh, and you might try cooking with butter or ghee for a while and see what happens--if it is a salicylate problem, using palm oil instead of coconut oil won't help because it's also high in salicylates (butter/ghee doesn't have any).
very informative!thanks!


And being that a healthy TF diet might typically be high in salicylates- well, that makes sense then. He spits up a bit more than my other 2 did. And I eat waaaaaay healhtier!
 
#12 ·
food allergies suck I hope you dont have to deal with them.


have you considered dairy or coffee?

does he have any other symptoms? pimples? exema? cradle cap? runny poop?

i think herbs can help with overactive letdown. maybe post in H and H. but i think over active letdown is related to gut helth thats why most galactagogues are also stomach medicines or digestive herbs.
 
#13 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by caedmyn View Post
It wouldn't take much coconut to cause a salicylate reaction for her (aside from the fact that she actually is intolerant to coconut itself!).
So, how does a person determine if they are having a salicylate reaction vs. an actual intolerance/allergy to coconut?
 
#14 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by WildIris View Post
So, how does a person determine if they are having a salicylate reaction vs. an actual intolerance/allergy to coconut?
Eat low salicylate foods for a while and see if the symptoms go away, then challenge with high salicylate foods and see if the symptoms return. There's a protocol for doing it on the websites I listed. I realized my DD was intolerant to coconut before I realized she was sensitive to salicylates--in her case it was pretty obvious because she had the same reaction to coconut as she did to wheat and nuts, to which she's also intolerant.
 
#15 ·
My second spit up like that. I too had an over active let down. I mean like a hose drowning someone
. I actually started taking my boob in a towel and squeezing hard for just a few seconds and then putting her back to nurse when I would feel let down. That helped a great deal for us.
 
#16 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by 425lisamarie View Post
My second spit up like that. I too had an over active let down. I mean like a hose drowning someone
. I actually started taking my boob in a towel and squeezing hard for just a few seconds and then putting her back to nurse when I would feel let down. That helped a great deal for us.
this may work for us. I really think now that this may be the problem. On one side it has always sounded like he is nearly drowning at first.
come to think of it... he does ok after getting the side that has mostly the hind milk.....
 
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