It's a good thing we waited to talk to the dermatologist before starting Morgan on Nutramigen. He said her eczema has nothing to do with what I'm eating. He said that only happens in about 1% of cases. He said the actual culprit was frequent bathing. He said water is the enemy for people with eczema, stripping their skin of its barrier protection. He said to bath her just once a week and for cleaning in between baths we could use Cetaphil and wipe it off with a cloth or paper towel - just NO WATER! I told him that the pediatrician suggested a Nutramigen formula trial for her eczema and possible reflux and he said not to do it for the eczema. That's fine with me, because that Nutramigen would be like $2,000! The ped. gave us Zantac, so our newest plan-of-the-day is to wait and watch her and see if she still exhibits the symptoms of reflux. If so, we can give her the Zantac. That is, of course, if the Tucker Sling we ordered, doesn't help. We want to try and exhaust our physical and behavioral options, before using the medicinal options. I'm glad to know that what I'm eating isn't bothering her. I was thinking/hoping that might be the case, especially when I had added diary back to my diet and her face cleared up, instead of getting worse.
I am still worried about my milk supply, though. It has peaks and valleys and I don't know what's going on or what has changed. I know the normal reasons for a drop in supply and none of them apply. Well, stress can drop your supply and I have been stressing. I want to keep feeding her breastmilk up until 6 months and then try to fix my overactive let-down. I don't want to fix it now, for fear of dropping my supply even more. If it drops after 6 months, I won't feel as bad, since 6 months was my original breastfeeding goal. If I can get her back to breastfeeding directly, I won't have to hassle with pumping and I could just pump the occasional bottle or use a bottle or two of formula. She'll be starting solid foods by then, so there should be other feeding options, should I need to be away from her for a few hours to run errands or something.
Well, I do feel better...now I just need to figure out what's up with my milk supply...
Breast feeding is so hard. I remember going through the 6 months of breast feeding constantly asking myself if she was getting enough, did I have enough milk for her and it just never ended. So beyond it being physically hard it is also emotionally hard too. Once I weaned her off breast feeding (which I regret now) we had to put her on Nutramigen because she had acid reflux. She was getting prevacid in the morning and axid at night. While I was breast feeding she didn't have so many problems with the acid reflux so that's one of the reasons I wish that I hadn't weaned her, but by then my milk was gone and it was too late. Anyway, my point was to let you know that our insurance company paid for our Nutramigen. Our doctor wrote a note saying it was medically necessary for her to be on it. We got about 10 cans for $40. It was about $40 per can so that was a major savings. Just wanted to let you know you can explore that should the need come up and you have to put her on that in the future.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to stop by from the "future" and note, in case anyone somehow stumbles across this, that my daughter did not *just* have a problem with frequent baths. She did, indeed, have multiple, and some severe, food allergies. We went through so much back-and-forth, but she is allergic to peanuts, milk , eggs, flax seed, and other foods. I know these posts are so old, but you never know who might find this and think "oh eczema is never caused by food allergies!"...
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