Milk Allergy

My baby has been diagnosed with an allergy to my breast milk. I’m crushed. How did you cope with this?

Our Mommy MD Guide’s reply: My older daughter had colic, which turned out to be an allergy to breast milk. I was besides myself when a nurse at my pediatrician’s office told me that.

I’m a scientist, so I stopped breastfeeding for a few days. My daughter stopped crying. So I started nursing again. Sure enough the baby nurse was right. Of course it took me weeks to convince myself. I was devastated. They say that we get antigens to all of the cow’s milk we drink, and that can bother the baby’s stomach. Perhaps in hindsight if I had stopped drinking dairy I could have nursed her through it.

—Eva Ritvo, MD, a mom of two teenaged daughters, a psychiatrist in Miami, FL, and coauthor of The Beauty Prescription