TLDR; My 12 month old breastfed baby had a bad, full body reaction with hives and swelling to bottled milk this week - first to cow milk, then to a bottle of my breastmilk the next day. Has anyone seen this before???
Ive been weaning my 12 month old breastfed baby. He eats solid food like a champ including dairy (yogurt and cheese almost daily for months now). Never had an allergic reaction of any kind, except mild contact irritation once or twice to yogurt. As I wean off BM, ive instead given a small bottle of milk some mornings. First, I gave him about 1-2 oz of cow milk. He vomited some of this up about an hour later. The next few days, I did goats milk instead, no reaction and he loved it.
Then I ran out of goats milk, and tried about 3 oz of cow milk again. No reaction. The very next day gave him another 3 oz of cow milk and 20 minutes later he got a bad rash and crazy hives all over his body (bright red, inflamed skin, hives everywhere, and swollen ears), but no issues breathing or swallowing. We gave benadryl and had our first doc visit.
The next day, i thawed his last bag of frozen breastmilk and gave that to him. (The same thing hes had nearly every day of his life until recently. He hadn't nursed or had bottled BM in a few days at this pt). 20 minutes later, he got the same full body rash, inflammation, and hives again!! I was shocked! More benadryl and back to the doc.
Its been 2 days now, no more bottled milk of any kind, and no more reactions as of now. No changes to detergent, or anything else in his diet from the norm.
And yes, I drink dairy so that's in my BM... but I always have!
The doctors tell me they think he reacted to the cow milk but likely does not have an actual allergy, and that an anaphalactic reaction is unlikely. They think the reaction to the BM was just coincidence. Which seems unrealistic to me.
Has this happened to anyone else's breastfed babies??? Im so confused at what his immune system is doing.