Breastfeeding?

[kathyhay]

I am just wondering how breastfeeding played into diagnosing celiac? Has anyone here nursed longer than 12 months? Did your child start showing signs after solids were introduced? Or did you see problems before solids? Did your older baby strongly resist weaning? I just want to see if you all have had similar experiences as I have with my undiagnosed baby. I have another post about his symptoms on the pre-diagnosis board (think husband and 2 yo have celiac). Please share your experiences as they relate to breastfeeding and introducing solids. Thank you for your help!

[Terri-Anne]

Hi Kathy

I am probaby an exception, as Logan doesn't have actual celiac disease, that we are aware of, but "wheat allergy." I nursed Logan exclusively until 4 months when I added rice cereal. Then at 6 months I added fruits and veggies. At around 9 months I added bits of bread, soft noodles, mashed potatoes to his diet. That is when he started to break out in a horrendous, rash that he scratched and scratched until he drew blood, then scratched some more! It was awful!!!! I didn't really think anything of the loose stool, as my experience with my previous 3 breastfed babies was that breastfed babies' stool is always soft! He also developed a severe case of what I thought was "cradle cap" that I could not clear up. He always had scarlet red cheeks, ears and chin, which I did not recognize as unusual, until I finally took wheat out of his diet and they disappeared! I didn' t make the "wheat~multiple problems" connection until around his second birthday. I was thankful to be still nursing him at that time, as I felt the breast milk was probably the MOST nutritious thing he was getting in his diet. Whether that perception was correct or not, I am not sure, but that was a real source of comfort in my own mind. I continued to nurse him until 2 months before his fourth birthday. It was mostly just before he fell asleep, and immediately upon waking, he would climb into bed with me for a quick cuddle and morning nurse. Reluctantly, I encouraged him to give that up. It's been about 8 months since we nursed, and I have to admit, I miss it sometimes, but health wise, he seems fine, no worse off than before, when we were still nursing.

My experience with my older daughter were when we introduced the infant oat cereal, as a change from several boxes of rice cereal, her stools resembled peanut butter with a tea bag broken up through it, in her diaper. Therefore I didn't dare try the oat infant cereal with Logan, which is probably a good thing.

[mat4mel]

There was a post about this not too long ago. My 2 1/2 yr old with celiac was breastfed mostly until she was 18 months old (she ate a little solids starting at maybe 6-8 months old, but preferred nursing)... her loose frequent bowel movements started when she started eating more solids around 18 months old (because I had decreased milk supply with a pregnancy). I am not sure if she had symptoms before I introduced solids.. she has always been on the small side (except for being almost 10 lbs at birth). I am due to give birth any day now and will be gluten free while breastfeeding.

Mel

[mpeel]

My four-year old is still nursing. She refused solids until 13 months old. She always had looser stools than I remember with my oldest but some babies do, I thought. I did not notice them get looser with solids but not really firm. I did notice after a stomach virus at 2 that her stools were never firm after that. Things progressed from there. Sam has never been small. 8 lbs at birth, 10 by two weeks and 20 by three months. She did slow down and now at 4 years old is 40 lbs which is still about average. I am tiny as is my oldest.

[gf4life]

I breastfed all three of my children for 17-20 months each. My two boys were in the 95th percentile on growth during the first 6 months and then when I started intriducing solids they started to drop down the charts. My daughter was very small when she was born and had trouble gaining weight. She was almost diagnosed failure to thrive at 12 months, but the doctors decided that she was just petite. Coincidently I was very ill during my pregnancy with her and got worse every year after that. She is now 5 and doing great on the diet. She is almost 40lbs now and getting taller every day! My boys are 8 & 10 and also starting to grow better. They are both short compared to their class mates but are growing at a faster rate now, so they will most likely catch up. I didn't know about Celiac or gluten until three years ago and it took until last year to get tested. My kids were 9, 7 & 4 when diagnosed. They all had some health issues, but never enough to get the doctors to notice their seemingly ramdom symptoms.

I did read that breastfeeding can delay the onset of Celiac and the symptoms are more mild than they would be if they were formula fed as infants. Don't know how true that is though. I was never gluten-free while breastfeeding, so the kids most likely got some gluten.

God bless,

Mariann

[azedazobollis]

I am new to this board. I have three children, ages 8, 6, and 2 years. My middle child, Zobey is on her fourth day of no Gluten, Milk or egg whites. I breastfed Zobey until she was a few months shy of three years old. She was not interested in starting solid foods until nine months old. At that point, I started her on mashed avacado, banana, sweet potato, and potato. She wasnt interested in breads or pasta. It was around 15 months old when she accepted most any food. At that point, I also added dairy to her diet. She started getting ear infections at that point. She also has "geographical tongue"- still all these years. At 20 months, she had tubes in her ears for chronic ear infections. Her tubes came out at around 3 years old. One ear is scarred and the other is permanently perferrated from the tube. When she was four, I noticed that she wasnt like all the other children her age. She was always tired, whiny, a "slow learner". I home schooled her until the middle of her kindergarten year. I put her in school because I thought it was my fault she was "slow". Her health became worse. Her lower abdomen hurts often, she frequently has bowel problems. dark circles under her eyes, She is thin and tall. 46" and 42 lbs.

Allergy tests came back five days ago. Milk and egg whites tested as an allergy. Her wheat was fine, but her Gliadin Ab (IgG) was 48- positive. We go back to the Dr. tomorrow, but he recommended trying no gluten- along with no dairy and egg white. I already see a change in her. She still has some bowel issues though through this diet change. Im just happy to finally be finding some answers.

My son is eight and allergic to peanut. I have my youngest daughter basically eating what her sister eats with whole grains included. Im sure my youngest is allergic to dairy. I was able to discover that at 12 weeks old. The colic stopped as soon as I cut out dairybut came back when I reintroduced it. I might also mention that we have eliminated all processed foods from the house a month ago. No preservatives. I found that I had to buy some ice pops with food colorings and high fructose corn syprup though. Poor girl- I cant completely wipe out everything fun in her diet.

[angigz32]

I breast fed my son until he was 17 months. I did have a hard time weaning him.

He had a feeding tube put in his nose. And he didn't want to breast fed right away. I tried to get him to eat and he still wouldn't eat so they put a feeding tube in his stomach. The Doc isn't sure he has celiac diease. My son does have 10% celiac sprue in his blood. And does have fat in his bowel movement but the doc still says he might not have celiac diease. He weighs 21 pds now and is 21 months old. When he gains more weight the doc is going to do more tests on him to see what is going on. The reason why he has to gain weight is because the tests will cause him to lose weight. Has anyone been through this?

Oh, also when he was a baby. They said he was a colic baby. And he had the stomach flu all the time. According to the doctors ,anyway!!

[kathyhay]

Just thought I'd bump this topic for a new pool of responders. Thanks!