Here’s my story of how a baby milk allergy turned out to be quite an ordeal.
When we became parents for the first time everything felt new and scary. We were completely responsible for this tiny little human and there were many moments when we felt completely helpless. But we made it through somehow…we were ready to do the whole baby thing all over again!
When our second baby boy came along, we felt ready to enjoy the experience. After all, we were now pros at the game, and we had a fabulous family doctor.
However, a few weeks after our son was born, we noticed something seemed to be wrong. He was cranky almost all the time and was spitting up A LOT. Our trusted doctor didn’t appear to be too bothered about it. In his opinion, our second one probably had a lot more gas or was more ‘colicky’ than our first. He prescribed some drops for the colic. If it didn’t bother him, it didn’t bother us. We went home comforted. But the drops didn’t help at all. In fact, over the next few weeks our baby seemed to be getting worse.
He seemed to be spitting up almost every feed and was crying all the time. None of us were getting any sleep. What was worse, by the next doctor’s visit our few weeks old infant had started losing weight. We were now terrified that something was seriously wrong. Our own internet research brought up scary words like ’pyloric stenosis’. We were convinced our doctor was at a complete loss too. He had ordered an ultrasound. Those were some of the most terrifying moments of our lives- waiting for the results of an ultrasound on our 6-week-old son. But the ultrasound results came back normal. Nothing was very obviously wrong yet… his symptoms were worsening.
Desperation had set in- it was all we could talk about. We tried every remedy recommended to us, even those we knew to be old wife’s tales.
Then one day the breakthrough happened… one of our family friends heard our story and insisted on us seeing a specialist who had helped resolve a similar issue in their child. It took us two weeks to get an appointment, but we were grasping at straws here- anything, anyone who could help.
Five minutes into our appointment with the specialist, he told us that our baby probably has a milk allergy.
*WHAT*?
We hadn’t even known such a thing existed. No one in our family had ever suffered from it. But this doctor had seen plenty of babies with similar symptoms. He recommended we change the baby formula we were using. We had to go through a couple of formula changes, but it did the trick.
Over the next few weeks, our little guy’s symptoms improved and eventually went away and he became happy healthy baby.
Who knew that babies could be allergic to the only food that sustains them in the initial few months?
Let me tell you ‘who knew’, first the friend who had a similar experience with their child who was able to direct us to a specialist ‘who knew’.
As a founder of Vitalxchange, this experience in my life was foundational to start this Company; for parents like me to get perspectives from both experienced parents as well as professional experts.
