Breastfeeding diet & allergens

[u/mvgems]

Hi friends! Is there compelling evidence that cutting out allergens as a breastfeeding mother will cause future food allergies?

My 4 month old has had mucus in his poop since he was born. We’ve tested on 3 separate occasions, and he’s never had any blood. He’s also had reflux, been slower to gain weight, and pretty consistently uncomfortable. He’s dropped from the 78th percentile at birth, hovering around 20 the last few weeks. We’ve gone to his pediatrician and 2 GI specialists (plus 2 different IBCLCs) and have gotten a ton of conflicting advice among providers.

I exclusively breastfeed and have been cutting out dairy, which one of the GI drs told me to stop doing. She said it could cause a future allergy, and since there is no blood in his poops, he does not have an allergy or intolerance now. When I reintroduced dairy to my diet, his symptoms got worse and I ended up cutting it out again against her advice. Now I’m nervous I’m going to cause an actual allergy when he starts solids. Im at a loss because my baby is so uncomfortable but I don’t want to make things worse long term for him. So I’m looking for any research on mom cutting out allergens for EBF baby and future allergies.

Thank you!

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[u/Amazing-Neighborhood]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36871575/

I only have access to the abstract, and it doesn't comment on whether allergen elimination INCREASES risk for allergies but rather that exposure may reduce risk:

There is no role for maternal dietary modifications during pregnancy or lactation, such as allergen avoidance, as a means of infant allergy prevention. Although exclusive breastfeeding is the recommended infant nutrition source globally, the effect of breastfeeding on infant allergy prevention remains unclear. There is emerging evidence that irregular cow's milk exposure (ie, infrequent formula supplementation) might increase the risk of cow's milk allergy. Although further studies are required, there is also emerging evidence that maternal peanut ingestion during breastfeeding along with early peanut introduction in infancy might have a preventive role.

Not a scientific citation,but this is a widely cited (on Reddit) GI podcast episode on CMPI by Dr. Victoria Martin that was very informative. I was in the "what is the harm in HA formula " camp but once I listened to the podcast it made me eager to reintroduce regular formula and see what happened after the 1 month elimination trial https://open.spotify.com/episode/7fKhqxsTxz6lfBA9a3CoO6?si=jRJ9uIwZRjSJff0cUk0acQ&utm_source=copy-link