prevention w/second child & breast feeding

Wendy1210

My son has a milk, soy, oat, tree nuts, peanuts, coconut & mustard allergy. We are planning on trying for another child. Any advice for possible prevention for the second child? Also, when this child is born, I am going to try to get my milk supply high enough to give my son a glass of BM daily. I was not able to breast feed very long with him and I want to try to give him more. But, this child's supply comes first.

magdusia

The only thing that i did different during my second pregnancy was moderation. I ate everything in moderation. Never ate too much of something.  Not sure if it made a difference but i think so -or at least it's a crazy coincidence.

1st pregnancy - i ate PB out of a jar to get my protein. i ate 2 or more eggs per day. I ate a lot of soy patties b/c i don't eat meat.  I constantly craved sesame seeds and remember putting them on everything. I did drink extra milk b/c i was worried of not having enough calcium (even though i hate milk).  My DS1 is allergic to MILK, SOY, EGGS, NUTS, SESAME (outgrew sesame).

My allergist told me to have everything in moderation and so i did. DS2 has a gut of steel. No allergies and eats everything in sight.

Could have been a coincidence.. or not.  I'm just glad DS2 doesn't have any allergies.

klyann

I spoke to the Pedi Allergist about this a couple months ago.  He said that the most recent research shows that there is really nothing a pregnant woman can do differently to prevent allergies in their LO.  That said I am no longer consuming peanuts so it will be interesting to see if LO#2 develops a peanut allergy living in a peanut free environment.

lrn327

Wendy1210:

My son has a milk, soy, oat, tree nuts, peanuts, coconut & mustard allergy. We are planning on trying for another child. Any advice for possible prevention for the second child? Also, when this child is born, I am going to try to get my milk supply high enough to give my son a glass of BM daily. I was not able to breast feed very long with him and I want to try to give him more. But, this child's supply comes first.

Just be prepared that by that age, your DS may have opinions on that already!  My DS is technically over his cow's milk allergy but has strong opinions on his milk just at 2.  (He readily informs us that he drinks soy milk!)  I'm sure BM at that age would have some health benefits but probably not the ones you're hoping for (helping to grow out of allergies).

LSU628

Our allergist recommended that just as a precaution I could cut dairy out of my diet for a month before my due date since DD#1 had a milk protein allergy. I cut back on dairy but didn't completely eliminate it. Our DS started showing some of the signs of a dairy allergy (horrible diaper rash; red, blotchy rash on his face immediately after eating, gas, fussiness) so we have him on Elecare now until we can formally test him. :-(

mrsmac08

I'm not sure if there's anything you can do or not. I haven't been in this situation, I've only had one pregnancy. But, I do have kind of a unique situtation because I have twins, so they obviously had the same environment while in utero, and they have completely different allergies.

DD is allergic to cow's milk protein and DS is allergic to soy protein (and has had a reaction to peanuts). I ate dairy in moderation, limited soy and peanuts in moderation during my pregnancy.

Wendy1210

I know I am not going to be able to assist with making my son's allergies go away by giving him BM but, it has great antibodies etc. If he doesn't like it then there is nothing I can do and my focus will be on making sure that my little one will be breast fed longer even though I know that even though they say EBFing helps to prevent allergies, I know many who were EBF and still developed allergies. I used to blame myself for his allergies since I gave up BFing too quickly. I just hope that LO #2 doesn't have any allergies but if so, at least we know what to do and we know the early signs of it.

lalamakita

My oldest, a daughter, has allergies.  I ate a ton of peanut butter, eggs and dairy while pg.   She was delivered by c/s, and she had formula before any breast milk, and while we struggled to get her nursing.  Eventually I exclusively pumped for her until 9 months.  She always had bad excema.  At 9 m we tried her on formula and she got sick, at which point we got her tested and learned of all sorts of allergies.  And once off dairy, her excema cleared within 2 days (I felt so awful that her cure was so easy, if we'd only known)

 so I did a lot of research about if there was anything I could do for prevention for #2.  So I cut out nuts from my diet when pregnant, and did everything I could for a vbac, preferably, unmedicated.  

Research says exiting through the birth canal coats the baby with all sorts of great stuff.  And i wanted to do everything i could to get nursing started better, and not having the meds/painkillers supposedly the babies are more alert and some feed right away and well.  

Well, I was successful on both parts, the birth and nursing, and my son has no food allergies at all.  So it's hard for me, with our cocktail of genetics to ignore that these things helped.   

 Now that we're expecting #3, I'm following the same guidelines, but we'll see.  I know a lot of research says what I eat now doesn't matter, so in general, I'll just have to stay guilt free.  

Good luck ladies!