Food intolerances in breastfed babies

armstroe

armstroe

Registered User
I have an exclusively breastfed 11 week old who seems to be intolerant to most things I'm eating. In the last month I've cut out dairy, caffeine, garlic, onions, anything spicy...now even my morning orange juice.

She is vastly improved - no longer suffering from gas problems and the reflux has almost gone, but she still has one green bowel movement in the late afternoon, early evening.

Does anyone have any research, experience or advice they can share. First, could my multivitamin be the problem, also do babies grow out of this. I would have thought that breastfeeding would have helped us skip food intolerances.
 
Does your baby have any other symptoms as well as green stools? Or have you managed to get rid of them with your diet changes?

If your baby only has green stools and no other problems then the colour of the stool is not a problem. Usually green stools are associated with high lactose content in your breast milk. One way to reduce this is to feed from only one breast at each feeding. This will make the baby take milk with a higher fat content.

I would recommend that you contact a La Leche League Leader to discuss changes to your breastfeeding management before reducing your diet further. Often changing the way the baby feeds will reduce problems of gassiness and green coloured stools without the need to restrict your diet.

Leaders in Hong Kong are:
Sarah 2548-7636
Judi 2987-5809
Maggie 2817-7475
Tanja 2259-3081

Best wishes,
Barb
 
Hi Barb

Thanks for your reply - I joined LLL about a month ago and have read the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding from cover to cover. There's not a lot about food intolerances, so I have just been keeping a food diary to see what impact different foods have on my daughter.

I'm pretty sure it is my multi-vitamin that is causing the green bowel movement. But as it isn't accompanied by any of the gas pain she used to suffer when I ate something spicy or laced with garlic I'm not that fussed.

As she is my second, I've been able to manage her reflux better too, thanks to diet (dairy elimination) and also as you suggested, just doing one breast per feed (and doing top-ups from the same breast). And at a healthy 14 pounds, any intolerances are certainly not a big problem for her. I guess I'm just concerned about later on. Will she grow up to be intolerant to these things?
 
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