When It’s Not Colic
waaaaay back when, roughly eleventy centuries ago, my son was allergic to my breast milk. i know it’s controversial to say that, especially online where anyone can see what i write… but it is what it is… or was.
i am by no means anti-breast feeding. not at all. i am pro-woman. therefore, i am pro-breast feeding mothers… i am also pro-formula feeding mothers. should you be a mother who is able to breast feed your child and it works for you, i commend you. should you be a mother who is unable to breast feed or unwilling to breast feed, regardless of the reason, i commend you. bottom line: find what works for you and your baby.
back in the day, no matter what elimination diet i tried, my child was in pain with stomach distention, severe vomiting, bloody stool, not to mention the screams of terror that came from him any time i attempted to nurse him as a newborn.
the result of our magoo refusing to eat for the first 6 months of his life left us with no other choice than to force feed him through an NG tube for 8 weeks. this “food refusal” diagnosis, resulting from the breast milk allergy, left us with a child who now battles severe reflux and cyclic vomiting syndrome. google it or just check out what’s below…
these are links that helped me attempt to find answers on days when i found myself without sleep, without sanity, without confidence in myself as a mother.
infant reflux
GERD tests
dairy free nursing
allergy elimination diet for breastfeeding
“the second brain” by dr. michael gershon
cyclic vomiting syndrome association
cyclic vomiting triggers
neurogastroenterology definition
food refusal and failure to thrive
hopkins children’s
kennedy krieger institute
pediatric feeding disorders program
jackson was hospitalized when he was 4 months old and then again at 5 months. the go-round, paul and i had our son hospitalized for dehydration as well as two abdominal ultrasounds, two barium swallow studies, an endoscopy, an allergy panel, blood work, and (almost) a gastric emptying scan were done on our child… all tests came back “normal.”
our second hospital stay resulted in having the NG tube for a total of 8 weeks. we called him “tube face” to make light of our situation.
thus, our bottle for a few months, was at the hospital… and those days can be found in the links below…
2 Responses to When It’s Not Colic
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Have a Sip
“my son was allergic to my breast milk. i know it’s controversial to say that,”
I’m very sorry that your individual experience with this was such a negative one, but I think it’s irresponsible to say that it’s a universally controversial statement. Twenty-seven years ago, my small town pediatrician told my mother, in a very matter of fact way, that I was allergic to breastmilk and that I needed to be switched over to formula. Simple as that, no drama and no controversy. Twenty-seven years ago.
A couple of years ago, I had bronchitis. I’ve had bronchitis before, I know the symptoms and I know what I need to treat it. When I went to urgent care, the doctor tried to tell me that it was just allergies and that my symptoms would go away in a few days. He refused to give me anything. A few days later, when the symptoms hadn’t gone away, my regular doctor confirmed my self-diagnosis and gave me the meds I needed. Just because the urgent care doctor wouldn’t diagnose me with bronchitis, doesn’t mean that it’s a controversial illness. It means he was an idiot.
New mothers have enough stress to deal with, without thinking that their baby has some taboo condition and that no one is going to listen to their fears. I just ask that you think a little bit more about what you say before you make a potentially harmful blanket statement like that. Especially on the internet where anyone can see what you write.
>Kim, I think you misunderstood what she was saying by taking that line out of context. It’s in reference to the whole battle between bottle vs. breast feeding.