Poison (aka Milk Protien)

 Ahhh, nursing.  I love it, I hate it.  It takes so much work to get started, but so easy once it is established.  I know it's infinitely best for our babies and best for our pocketbooks, so I've nursed all our babies for a year.  It has gotten easier with each one as I realize what a brief amount of time in the big scheme of things I will have this special time with my baby and give them one of the best gifts I can as a mother.  But with precious little Cameron it has meant much more.

I pride myself in saying I never bought an ounce of formula for Kali and Blake because we got so many samples from the doctor's offices.  I definitely used formula once or twice a week for temple nights, work, date nights, etc. It was important to me not to be the only source of my kids nutrition - I mentally needed options other than me.

I planned on doing the same thing with Cameron.

Formula #1: Steve offered to take this little angel through the night since the first week he was born, but it is next to impossible (and dangerous for my milk supply) for me to go 8 hours without nursing for the first 6-8 weeks.  So I'm it for a couple months.  Well, the day finally came that Steve was going to take little Cameron.  I was sooo excited to get more than a 3-4 hour stretch of sleep a night.  Cameron is a great sleeper, but what mom goes to sleep right when the baby goes down?  None that I know.  So by the time homework was done, dishes were done, laundry was done, time was spent with my sweetheart, Cameron would have about 3-4 hours of sleep left in him.  I was tired.   So the night came and Cameron was about 8 weeks. We decided it would be easiest for Steve to fill a bottle with warm tap water upstairs in the sink and quickly mix formula than to heat my milk in hot water.  It was the first time in his life he'd had formula. The next morning I walked down to the room they had slept in and Steve looked like a train wreck.  "That was the worst night ever!!" he said,  "He threw up all night long!"

I smiled and thought, welcome to my world.  He probably spit up a couple times, and when you're delirious during the night everything seems worse.  Maybe a bad batch of formula - I made a mental note to maybe try a different kind next time.

Formula #2:  It was a couple weeks later and I decided to try formula again.  He didn't take the bottle so well, but he probably had 3 oz of formula.  He immediately threw up like I'd never seen.  And then threw up again.  And then was pale, sweaty, lethargic.  And limp.  Kali looked at me and said, "Mom, he is so sick."   I held him close and tried to nurse him; which he immediately threw up and continued to do so for the next 6 hours.  Stomach issues had been going around so I felt like I had a few options of what it could have been: a stomach bug, bad brand of formula, expired formula - I had no idea, but I was very hesitant to try it again.

Formula #3: I didn't touch formula for 2 months.  The next time I tried it my journal reads "He acts like it's poison.  He gets even a drop on his lips and he freaks out - arches back, shudders, spits it out.  What is going on?!"  I was scared to be the only source of nutrition, and if something happened to me what would Steve do?  I wanted to avoid not having a single other choice.  Finally one day when he was almost 5 months I waited until he was very hungry, warmed it just right and he guzzled the whole bottle.  I had succeeded!  He played happily in his swing for an hour and I laid him down for his nap.  He slept unusually well and it was about 1 1/2 hours until I checked on him.  I went to check on him only to find his little head encircled with a 3 foot radius of dried throw up.  I almost started crying.  I scooped him up and he was pale, lethargic, sweaty and limp, not really responding.  I immediately nursed him and he threw it all up, still limp.  6 hours later he was back to his normal self. I finally knew it was the formula - any kind of formula!!  No stomach bug, no bad batch.  I called the doctor's office and a nurse recommended trying one ounce of soy with 3 oz of my milk, but there was NO way I was putting any of that in my baby's mouth.  I would not give him any formula until I talked to a doctor in person.  I called my friend, Becky Knudsen, who had a baby the same time I had, and asked her if she wanted some formula. I wanted to get this poison out of my house immediately.  I drove it over that night & she said "I feel like I just won the lottery!"

So I said goodbye to this awesome stock pile I had built up.  I collected it every time I had an OB visit or a pediatrician visit - all given to new moms "in support of breastfeeding."  Right.  I did like thinking about how much money I was saving with my little stockpile, but I wasn't a bit sad to see it go.  OK, maybe a little sad, but it really was poison to my baby!

 At his next well child visit I told the Nurse Practitioner the whole story.  She seemed stumped at the "lethargic" part.  "What do you mean, lethargic?" she asked.   I mean lethargic - pale, limp, grey, sweaty.  Not good!  She kept hmmm-ing and told me she'd give us another kind of formula to try - Nutramigen - but I still didn't feel satisfied with that answer.  She called back at 5:00 that night and said that as she was talking it over with the Doctor they realized they should call the allergist.  Enter Dr. Stewart - she told them he was dropping his blood pressure and going into shock because of a severe allergic reaction, and I was not try formula again under any circumstances unless I was in their office so they could resuscitate him!  Well, I was a bit shaken up.  I called Steve, crying.  I felt guilty I didn't recognize shock in my baby.  If that had happened to one of my adult patients I would have called a STAT Team (meaning they were almost dying - I need docs, lab, help in here quick!).  I felt so guilty I didn't know shock was a type of allergic reaction in babies.  I felt guilty I tried formula twice (the first time Steve tried it and I should have been a better listener, but I didn't see it firsthand so I don't let that time add to my mom guilt.  Just wife guilt).  The only thing that made me feel better was that the NP was stumped too.  The allergist said I should feel no guilt, I was being scientific. 

We have not a SINGLE allergy in our family so that was the last thing on my mind.  

At any rate, 2 weeks later we met with the allergist, Dr. Stewart,  and she did some allergy testing - no needles, just a toothpick rubbed across his back with histamines on it.  She acted like it was no big deal, she sees it every day, but my baby almost died!!!!  At least that's how I felt. 

They tested him for milk, egg, almond, peanut, rice and a couple other things - I forget.  And the results...

He tested negative for everything, including milk.  This means he has a:

Cow's Milk Protein Allergy - he will outgrow this in 12-18 months.  A true milk allergy would last until he was 5 or 6.  So in the meantime there is an elemental formula called Neocate we received samples of - it smells bad going in and coming out.  And costs $30 a can!  But we have a plan B, which has relieved my fears.  Cameron doesn't like taste of the Plan B, and we don't like the smell of it, but at least we have one.  Dr. Stewart said 30-40% of these babies are also allergic to soy so she recommends steering away from that for now.  After a year she said we could trial it in her office.

This means:

*No milk, cheese, yogurt, Gerber Yogurt Melts, ice cream, mashed potatoes that have milk, etc for about another year.  We can start with Almond Milk when I am done nursing, maybe soy and then back to milk at the latest at 18 months.

*Because he tested negative to all of the above, we can introduce any of those at any time.

*I usually wean when my babies are 12 months, but we may nurse a little longer.  It's hard on me to have all those hormones circulating to make nursing happen- not going to sugar coat it.  It takes energy, sleep, appetite, etc to make it happen and I feel so good when I'm done nursing and my hormones get back to normal.  But I love that my babies nurse and wouldn't change it for a thing.  Love/hate like I said.

The doctor made me feel like a million bucks when she said, "I rarely have moms in here who nurse for 6 months, let alone a year.  I'm not going to ask you to do more than that - there are other options."  But I might do a bit more, we'll see how things are going at that point.

*None of the milk protein passes through my milk, so I can still eat dairy.

*$$$ - I added up the money we are saving by nursing, since he would have to have Neocate and I think we can afford to take a family trip to Disneyland this fall because I am nursing!!! ;)

From the time he was in the womb I told Steve & my mom he was a "sensitive baby."  He felt calm, jumped to loud noises from about 24 weeks, didn't turn breech at the end, etc.  But I didn't realize his sensitivity would extend to an allergy :).  Grateful for answers from modern medicine and grateful nursing is going so well!