Neocate and Milk Allergy While Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding provides optimal nutrition for babies and can also help prevent certain infections in babies. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a baby's life.
Typically babies will not develop allergic symptoms while being exclusively breastfed. However, very sensitive babies can develop allergic symptoms (e.g. skin rash, vomiting, diarrhea) while exclusively breastfeeding.
This is not an allergy to breast milk itself; it is an allergic reaction to small amounts of dietary proteins (e.g. cows' milk protein, egg protein, etc) that are passing from mother to baby in the mother's breast milk.
Although breastfeeding is considered to be protective against the development of certain diseases including atopic disease (skin rash), some infants become sensitized to the dietary antigens present in breast milk from their mothers' diet. They can then exhibit symptoms such as skin rash and poor growth.
Breastfed infants with allergy should be treated by allergy avoidance. This can be achieved with a modified maternal diet. Any foods containing the offending protein (cow milk, soy, etc) which the child is intolerant to should be restricted from the mother’s diet.
An elimination diet using a non-allergenic amino acid-based formula such as Neocate is designed to replace breast milk only in circumstances where breast milk is not tolerated. For instance if a child displays symptoms of food allergy while being exclusively breast fed and attempts to modify maternal diet have been ineffective or in cases where growth is impaired, the physician should consider replacing breastfeeding with nutrition based on a non-allergenic replacement such as Neocate Infant formula.
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