The younger the child, the more sensitive, tender. This means that the risk of allergies is highest in newborns, but all childhood remains. An allergic reaction is especially high if you need to transfer a newborn to special nutrition. In recent years, an allergy to the milk mixture is becoming more common. The reasons for this have not yet been clarified, so it remains only to be careful, monitor the health of children and take the necessary measures at the first manifestations of food intolerance.
Food Allergy: A Danger in Everyday Life
In order not to miss the onset of an allergic reaction, you need to carefully monitor the condition of the child. The most dangerous period is the start of using a new product. Intolerance can occur even when choosing the most, it would seem, common and safe options - the same “Nutrilon hypoallergenic” (the 1st of the most popular types of baby food), as you know, can provoke allergies in some cases.
How is an allergy to the mixture
Manifestations of intolerance:
- incorrect functioning of the digestive tract;
- skin rashes;
- trouble breathing.
The first is expressed by colic, belching, diarrhea and gas. Such an allergy to the mixture in a newborn is very common and requires a change of food to another, softer and safer. An allergic reaction on the skin is more often manifested by rashes on the hair-covered part of the head, face, legs, and arms.
It is important!
Often, the signs of an allergy are confused with the manifestations of ordinary poisoning. This is also due to the fact that the symptoms are similar, expressed primarily by severe abdominal pain. If the child is allergic to the mixture, it is necessary to deal with it differently than with poisoning. However, the most effective and quickest result can be achieved if you immediately get an appointment with a pediatrician. Self-medication of young children at home is prohibited, since the condition of the crumbs can only worsen.
Often intolerance of special baby food is explained by a genetic predisposition. To identify this factor, you need to visit a doctor, take tests. In addition, the doctor makes an overall picture, collects information about diseases in the family, which helps to make an accurate conclusion. As a rule, a specialist gives recommendations on the choice of food, focusing on the composition of milk mixtures, tells which components should be avoided.
No panic!
Often young parents panic, as soon as an incomprehensible pimple or tiny reddish speck appears on the baby. However, it happened, often this panic is accompanied by attempts to consult with relatives and friends, but not with doctors. Unfortunately, the townsfolk know very little about diathesis, allergies in infants with a mixture, so they can begin to treat a baby for diseases that he does not have at all.
Someone goes the other way: not understanding what is happening with the child, they just leave everything to chance, hoping that "it will pass by itself." Both approaches are categorically incorrect. If the child already has an allergy to the mixture, it is important to quickly eliminate the provoking factor (nutrition component).
Allergy: how to fight?
Already at the first appointment, the doctor can determine which allergies are possible and which are safe. The doctor focuses on the general picture of intolerance, on information about similar situations in the family, as well as on data on how the baby eats at home.
Allergy treatment is two steps:
- allergen detection;
- elimination of allergen from food.
Is it obvious?
It is believed that the use of special mixtures almost 100% protects against allergies. A good example is Nutrilon Hypoallergenic-1. But doctors know for sure: even when choosing a special nutrition, intolerance may occur. The fact is that the children's body can not cope with a variety of products. Even what is by default non-allergenic can provoke a negative reaction in a particular case.
Cow milk and its derivatives are considered the most dangerous. But in fact, an allergy can even develop for the mother’s milk.
Allergy in infants with a mixture
Nutrition intolerance is much more common than breast milk allergy. Its manifestations are diverse. Some babies get eczema, others get acne. The cause of the disease is not always in complementary foods, therefore, at the first signs of a baby’s health problems, you need to show the pediatrician in order to determine the problem accurately. The doctor will choose the method of treatment and give recommendations on the diet for the newborn.
Various dairy formulations (including the very popular Baby 1 mixture) are widespread these days, there are practically no families where this complementary foods are not used. This affects the frequency of allergic cases, which in recent years has become even higher. The allergy in infants to the mixture is explained by the content of components of animal milk, intolerable by young children with too delicate digestive tract.
Allergy: Prevention and Fight
Is it possible to avoid allergies if you use only the popular Baby 1 mixture or the Nutrilon mentioned above? It is believed that only those complementary foods that include a hydrolyzer can be truly effective. Hypoallergenic products are also recommended to minimize the risk of intolerance to the components of the mixture.
In hypoallergenic products, a special protein is present. It provokes an allergy much less often than regular feeding, but still an intolerance reaction is possible. Doctors recommend buying treatment options if possible - they are available in abundance in pharmacies. Reliable, trusted manufacturers should be preferred, although their products are significantly more expensive.
Special options
If an allergy in infants to the mixture manifests itself even when choosing a special diet, you should switch to the so-called adapted products. Sour-milk lures are most demanded in our time. However, even intolerance may develop on them. It can be avoided if complementary foods are introduced into the food carefully, little by little, under the supervision of a pediatrician.
Hydrolyzed mixture is one of the rather safe options for special nutrition. An allergy to it is also possible, since cow protein is present in the diet. When it is split, a stable compound is obtained, due to which the product is stored for a rather long time, but it becomes a source of allergy.
Lactose: completely excluded!
Parents who are tired of fighting against intolerance to dairy products may try to transfer the baby to food completely devoid of lactose. But there are dangers. An allergy to such complementary foods is caused not by difficulties with the processing of the digestive tract of milk proteins, but by the rejection of other components. Which ones is almost impossible to predict in advance.
How often is an allergy to baby food completely devoid of dairy components? Quite rarely, but to guarantee its absence is impossible. Much depends on the individual characteristics of the child's body and a genetic predisposition to allergic reactions.
Milk formula without milk
If the doctor revealed that the cause of intolerance lies in milk protein, this is not a reason to refuse to feed. It is enough to exclude products of animal origin (milk) from the diet of the child. Special mixtures based on soy protein come to the rescue. Its structure is different from products of animal origin, making the component easier to digest even at the most tender age.
At the same time, you need to understand that soybean mixture does not have a high level of adaptation, which means that you can’t always use it. Usually, the doctor makes a choice in favor of such complementary foods, he also prescribes the frequency of use and the duration of the course. You need to understand that soy protein is also allergic. The frequency of its manifestation is quite large - up to 15% of all cases of the use of complementary foods.
Cumulative allergy
Such an allergy develops with prolonged use of baby food with components that are intolerable to the baby. Even with the exception of the elements provoking the reaction from the baby's nutrition, the manifestations of the disorder remain for another week or two. However, they will gradually fade away, and in a few weeks the child will again become healthy, and his skin will be beautiful and clean.
Mixtures: no allergies!
I would like to believe that there is such a mixture for feeding babies to which an allergic reaction is impossible in principle. Unfortunately, so far our industry has not been able to produce such baby food. Different variants of specialized products differ from each other in the likelihood of an allergic reaction, but no manufacturer can guarantee the absolute safety of their goods.
What to do?
If it is known that there have already been cases of intolerance to cow's milk in the family, it makes sense to choose a baby formula that does not contain this component. An effective replacement will be amino acid baby food, in which there is no protein.
When choosing a mixture for feeding a baby, it is important to consult a doctor. You need to understand that experimentation is unacceptable, because the body of a young child is tender, susceptible to the negative effects of external factors, and daily experiences great stress. It is unacceptable to try different options, encountering one or another allergy. Instead, they are first diagnosed by the attending physician, visited by an allergist, gastroenterologist, and, based on their findings, they decide in favor of a particular product.
Not so simple
Often young, inexperienced doctors, and with them even more inexperienced young parents, do not know that the cause of allergies lies not only in protein intolerance. In some cases, this reaction develops because the baby eats mother's milk along with complementary foods, and the allergen enters the breast milk from the mother’s food.
In some cases, the reason is not at all the components of which the mixture is made, but the amount of baby food fed to the child. Other parents feed the baby until it stops on its own. This leads to the fact that internal systems can not cope with the volume of incoming artificial products, which provokes allergies.
What to do?
Pay attention to the packaging of the selected mixture for baby food. Here they necessarily indicate the extent to which products can be used for food, guidance is given - age, weight of the child. Exceeding these standards is unacceptable, even if the baby cries and asks for more.
Often the digestive system of a small child is able to digest the artificial products that come with the nutrient mixture, but only if its volume is small. This means that compliance with established standards eliminates the risk of allergies. With the manifestation of a negative reaction, additional portions of complementary foods can be further reduced.