Expert: Sally Wendkos Olds - 4/22/2009

Question
Hello, my son is 10 weeks old.  He's a great baby, and slept fantastic up until... about two weeks ago.   
I drink alot of milk as per my doctors advice.  (more than a quart per day)   
Two weeks ago my husband came back from a business trip and brought some nice cheese's from france. (goats cheese, some nice brie's, some cheddar etc...)

He became somewhat unsettled afterwards (we think this is when it started)  
Then this week it really became more difficult and we noticed he had some (very little) blood in his stool today.  We also noticed his stool to be somewhat a little bit mucus'y.  
It happened for about 5 stooly diaper changes from last night till today.  Then on the 6th the blood spotting and mucus stopped.  We went to the doctor and the doc said not to worry about it that she thought it was maybe a small tiny burst blood vessel but to keep an eye on it.

We were reading online this evening and thought maybe it was the food I was eating, my doctor says absolutely not but I think otherwise now.   It cant be the milk because i've been drinking it all along.  Then I thought of the foreign cheese, and then I remembered I've been eating some higher-content fat yogurt. (I say higher content because I dont know how else to describe it, its regular yogurt, just not the fat free kind.. its the 'creamy' kind)

We suspect it might be the yogurt?  Its really the only thing that sticks out in the diet that I can think of.  We also tried Peppermint Oval last night for the first time, would that be it?

Thankyou for any feedback you can provide!


Answer
Dear Angela,

First, congratulations for giving your son the best start in life by breastfeeding him!

Some babies react to dairy foods in their mothers' diets. The latest recommendations for nursing moms are 1-3 servings of calcium-rich dairy foods a day. One serving of milk is one cup. So you have been taking in more than that, and maybe adding the cheese and yogurt tipped the balance to more than your baby's system can handle.

I suggest avoiding all dairy for a week or two and see if your baby's symptoms go away. Then maybe introduce a little milk into your own diet a couple of weeks later. It’s possible that your baby’s digestive system will have matured, and you’ll no longer need to deprive both of you of the good nutrition in milk. If you do give up dairy products for a long time, you may want to check with a nutritionist to be sure you’re still receiving enough nutrients from other foods. You can get calcium and protein from a number of other foods. No single food is indispensable.

Good luck!

Sally
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Sally Wendkos Olds
Author, THE COMPLETE BOOK OF BREASTFEEDING: Eiger & Olds, 3rd edition 1999, published by Workman Publishing & Bantam Books, and available in most public libraries, bookstores & La Leche League chapters. Now in revision for a fourth edition, with pediatrician Laura M. Marks, M.D.