How do you know if your baby is lactose intolerant?

Question

My midwife and my family doctor have both told me that if my son was lactose intolerant he would have bad diarreah and projectile vomitting. I wonder if my son is lactose intolerant because he constantly spits up from one bottle until the next. It's not just a little it's a lot of spit up. Within 2 hrs his bottles has probably all came up. One of my friends had this problem and put her girl on lactose free formula and it worked, even when the doctors said it wasn't lactose intolerant. They also say he doesn't have reflux or anything, but haven't really checked him out either. When I tell them he spits up alot they just tell me it's normal. He is 5 months this saturday.

Answer 1

my daughter was about 4 weeks old when we found out that she was lactose intolerant. she would just cry and bring her knees up to her chest and just scream so grandme (boy friends) mom was gong to rite aid to get some pedylight (sp?) but she went over and asked the pharmisit (sp?)about it and she said call the dr and they will give u a sample of some soy formula she brought it home and the first bottle she had she slept like for 7 hours. with out crying. and when she turned one and was on whole milk she did fine with it and now she is 2 1/2 years old and loves milk

Answer 2

allergic reaction on their skin throwing up all the time constant diahrea but of course only a pediatrition would know go have your baby checked out

Answer 3

Human babies are essentially NEVER lactose intolerant.  Babies are made by nature to drink breastmilk -- and breastmilk has far more lactose in it that formula.  

Babies who have issues with the milk in formula (or breastfed babies who react when mom eats dairy) are usually allergic to the proteins in milk. Or, less often, they are sensitive to something else in the formula.  

If baby is vomiting a lot on his formula, and it's been going on for a while, you need to talk to the doctor about trying a different formula. He might do better on a 'gentle' formula, or he might need a  hypoallergenic or soy formula.  You might also consider a different bottle. If baby swallows a lot of air, that can make him spit up/vomit.

If the vomiting is recent, he could be sick. Or if you just started solids, he might be allergic to a new food.  

In any case, this is something to discuss with the doctor. If he's really vomiting that much, his weight gain is probably poor, and you need to track down and solve the problem

Answer 4

Spitting up is normal, as long as your baby seems ok.  If hes a happy spitter, its just due to his GI system not being mature.  If he gets fussy and vomits profusely, then hes lactose intolerant.  Your doctor knows what he is talking about.  My daughter is allergic to dairy and she would vomit up everything.

Answer 5

My babies is on Nutramigen (very expensive formula but the best ever)  He is allergic to milk protein allergy.  He can't even tolerate soy or gentle formula. Nutramigen is a formula that is pre-digested.  Ask your baby's doctor for a sample.

Answer 6

My youngest was lactose intolerant (still is to some extent, but not as bad) and his doctor just thought I was overreacting to "a little gas and spit up" (which was vomiting from one of his several food allergies) and said that I was spoiling him by holding him (which I did to comfort him because he was in pain).  He only had diarrhea a couple of times and his vomiting stopped when I finally figured out what foods he was allergic to and removed them from our diets.  So his LI didn't cause his vomiting, either.  A person doesn't have to have all or even many of the symptoms of lactose intolerance to be suffering from it.

There's a hydrogen breath test that can tell you whether or not he's lactose intolerant.  But if the doctor doesn't think he is, he/she probably won't give him the test.  There are, of course, other reasons why he might be spitting up, but it would be really easy to try lactose free formula for a day or two.  If he is LI, you'll know pretty fast.  Then you can tell the doctor what a pompous *** he is.  If the new formula doesn't help, try a hypoallergenic one in case it's a milk allergy.  If it seems to be an allergy your son is dealing with, make sure your doctor tests him to know for sure, just so you can prove it.  My son's doctor didn't send him to an allergist until I broke down and cried in her office, and I had been asking for a referral for months.  She didn't think my son had allergies, but he did!

If he does turn out to be lactose intolerant, give him some probiotics to help him digest the lactose and gradually mix a little more regular formula into his lactose-free formula over time.  If a person's diet is entirely devoid of lactose the body will learn that it doesn't need to produce any more lactase and if you try to give your son a little dairy in the future he might end up even worse off than he is now.  The right probiotics can "cure"  lactose intolerance.

Answer 7

http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/lac...

    If your baby is sensitive to dairy products it is highly unlikely that the problem is lactose intolerance, although many people may tell you so.

    There are three types of lactose intolerance:

       1. Primary lactose intolerance

       2. Congenital lactose intolerance

       3. Secondary lactose intolerance

    Primary lactose intolerance (also called developmental, late-onset or adult lactose intolerance) is relatively common in adults (and more common in some nationalities than others), and is caused by a slow decrease in the body’s production of lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose (milk sugar). This occurs gradually, over a period of years, and never appears before 2-5 years old and often not until young adulthood. Almost all adults who are lactose intolerant have this type of lactose intolerance, which is not related to lactose intolerance in babies.

http://www.aapd.org/upload/articles-old/...

    Parents should avoid combining milk or milk formulas with other food products or sugar.56 Additionally, those infant formulas that contain sucrose instead of lactose may be particularly cariogenic.

http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfinfo/l...

    Congenital Alactasia is an extremely rare condition whereby babies are born without any lactase (the enzyme needed to break down milk sugars), making human milk unsuitable for the baby, precluding breastfeeding. These babies must be fed a special lactose-free formula to survive (soya formula, or dairy based but lactose free).

    Functional Lactase Deficiency describes a thriving breastfed baby who has multiple loose watery stools. The baby may be irritable and may pass flatus frequently. Low fat feeds result in rapid gastric emptying leading to large quantities of lactose being presented for digestion. Thus the ability of lactase to digest the lactose may be overwhelmed. The amount of fat being consumed at any feed should therefore be maximised to delay gastric emptying. This can best be achieved by optimising hind milk intake by:

        * Encouraging the infant to finish the first breast before offering the second breast.

        * Spacing feeds. Aim for three hours between feeds. If the baby demands again in less than this time offer the “empty” breast again.

    As lactose is the main form of carbohydrate in all mammalian milks (including human milk), lactose production at the breast occurs independently of dietary changes. Reducing the amount of lactose in the diet of a breastfeeding mother does not alter lactose production at the breast. It is present at a constant level throughout a feed and throughout a day.

    A food allergy exists when a body has an abnormal reaction to food. A person who is allergic to dairy is normally reacting to one or more proteins found in cow’s milk. Typical reactions to milk protein(s) allergy involve problems associated with the skin, the stomach/intestines and or breathing.

    Allergies to milk protein are more common in infants and children, and are usually to casein. Generally, adults milk reactions are caused by lactose but adults have been known to be allergic to milk protein. Milk protein allergy in infants can be detected as early as 9 days.

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/0/T000100...

The following are the most popular specialty formulas at this writing: Lactose-free formulas (e.g., Lacto-free, Mead Johnson) are an example of new formula products that are driven more by market demand than scientific sense. Many formula-fed babies (and breastfed babies, too) get fussy, resulting in what we call the formula parade: switching from one formula to another until either something works or the baby's intestines mature and he outgrows the problem. Whatever formula you're using at the time gets the credit. The fact is that oftentimes baby's fussiness is not due to the formula, but to other unrelated causes. Nevertheless, formula gets the blame, so factories step up with new varieties to keep up with the demand. Hence lactose- free formulas.

Lactose-intolerance is over-diagnosed in babies (as it is in adults). It's easy to blame formula, and therefore lactose, for baby's fussiness. Think for a moment. If so many babies are lactose-intolerant, why would lactose be the sugar in human milk? True, human milk also contains the enzyme lactase that helps babies absorb the lactose, whereas formula does not, but milk lactase doesn't do the whole job. It does seem that nature would provide the intestines of nearly all babies with enough lactose to get through at least a year or so of milk-feeding (lactose is only present in dairy products and not other foods).

The main difference in lactose-free formula is that the lactose sugar has been replaced by other sugars, usually corn syrup and sucrose (table sugar). The protein and fat blend is the same as in cow's milk-based formulas. The biochemist who dreams up the formula believes that sugar is sugar, and substituting corn syrup and sucrose for lactose is no big deal. Lactose is eventually broken down into glucose, as are corn syrup and sucrose, so it shouldn't matter. Actually, the intestines break the lactose down into two sugars – galactose and glucose. Both of these sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream. No one really knows what galactose does or why it's beneficial, just as no one knows the whole story about how the body reacts to sugars from corn syrup and sucrose. So, we're back to the non-science of common sense. If the human baby (like all mammals) didn't do better with galactose, it wouldn't be there in the first place. The milk sugar would have been pure glucose. Like so many other nutrients in formula, there is one big WE DON'T KNOW about lactose-free formulas.

Answer 8

My sister's baby would spit up constantly but everything else was fine so her doctor told her to add cereal to his formula and that helped a little.  He continued to spit up until about 1 and then it just stopped.  The doctor said it had something to do with his esophagus.  My other friend has had all 3 of her kids on soy milk because she said they were lactose intolerant even though no doctor had ever said that and they never threw up or spit up regularly.  All kids spit up and some more so than others.  The doctor says your child is fine and normal and so does your  midwife so trust that and get a lot of burp towels.