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Food Sensitivity—Warning!
Some Foods May Be Hazardous to Your Baby’s Smile
If you are breast-feeding, you may have been counseled to avoid foods
that are too hot, too cold, too strong, too weak, as well as to steer clear
of spices, dairy products, acidic fruit and “gassy” vegetables.
Likewise, mothers of colicky, bottle-fed babies are often advised to
switch their child’s formula to remove an ingredient that may cause
fussiness.
Over the years, experts have considered three ways a baby’s diet
might trigger uncontrollable crying: indigestion, allergies, and caffeine-
type stimulation.
Indigestion: Are Garlic and Onions Risky or the Spices of
Life?
Passing up garlic, onions, and beans seems reasonable to most people.
These foods can make us gassy. But if gassy foods are hard on a baby’s
tummy, why can breast-feeding moms in Mexico eat frijoles (beans) and
those in Korea munch kim chee (garlic-pickled cabbage) without their
babies ever letting out a peep?
Nevertheless, I do think it’s reasonable for the mother of an irritable
baby to avoid “problem” foods (citrus, strawberries, tomatoes, beans,
cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, peppers, onion, garlic)
for a few days to see if her baby cries less. However, in my experience,
only a handful of infants improve when these foods are eliminated.
Studies even show that babies love tasting a smorgasbord of flavors. So
don’t be surprised if your little one sucks on your breast more heartily
after you’ve had a plate of lasagna loaded with garlic!
Food Allergies: Why Couldn’t Babies with Allergies Just
Sneeze Instead of Scream?

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Allergies are part of our immune system, protecting us from unfamiliar
proteins (like inhaled pollen or cat dander) that try to enter our bodies.
As a rule, if you have an allergic reaction you’ll sneeze, because the
fight between your body and the allergens typically takes place in your
nose. With infants, however, the battleground between their bodies’
immune system and the foreign protein is usually in the intestines. Your
baby’s intestine is not yet fully developed. Her immature intestinal lining
allows large, allergy-triggering molecules to enter her bloodstream like
flies zooming through a torn screen door. Over the first year of life, your
baby’s intestinal lining gradually becomes a much better barrier to these
protein intruders.
For many years, doctors believed babies could be allergic to their own
mother’s milk. In 1983, Swedish scientists proved this impossible. They
demonstrated that babies whose colic improved when they were taken
off their mother’s milk were sensitive not to their mom’s milk itself but
to traces of cow’s milk that had floated across the lining of the mother’s
intestines and snuck into her milk.
Please don’t be overly concerned about your diet troubling your child.
As a rule, babies rarely develop allergies to the foods their moms eat.
The two biggest exceptions to that rule, however, are cow’s milk, the
proverbial eight-hundred-pound gorilla of baby allergies, and soy,
coming in a not-too-distant second place (about ten percent of babies
who are milk allergic are soy allergic as well).
I tell my patients it should come as no surprise that some babies
develop an allergic reaction to cow’s milk. After all, this food is lovingly
made by cows for their own babies, and it was never intended to feed
our hungry tots.
Cow’s milk protein starts passing into your breast milk within minutes
of drinking a glass. It reaches its peak level about eight to twelve hours
later and it’s out of your milk in twenty-four to thirty-six hours.
Fortunately, most babies have no problem tolerating this tiny bit of milk
protein. However, sensitive babies begin reacting to it within two to
thirty-six hours of consuming it.
Milk-allergic babies may suffer from a number of bothersome
symptoms besides severe crying. I have cared for infants whose milk
allergy gave them skin rashes, nose congestion, wheezing, vomiting, and
watery stools. The intestines of some of my patients have gotten so

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irritated by allergies that they produced strings of bloody mucous that
could be seen mixed in with their stools. Although blood in your baby’s
diaper will raise your heart rate, it is usually no more ominous than
finding blood in your mucous when you blow your nose. Be sure to
contact your baby’s doctor, however, to discuss the problem.