Raising a Milk Intolerant Child

My daughter Amber came home from the hospital a cold January morning.� She was a perfect baby, she ate on schedule and slept with no problems.� A week after my husband and I brought her home she began what we thought was colic.� She would scream and cry for hours on end, projectile vomit,�and had difficulty moving her bowels.� Her doctors assumed it was colic and decided to try a soy based formula.� This of course did not work and my husband and I spent weeks on the telephone with her doctor telling her that colic was not the problem and in the meanwhile we spent all of our time dancing around our home with her trying desperately to calm her down.


Finally her doctor agreed that she needed another change of formula and changed her to a lactose free formula.� This again did nothing.� Amber was projectile vomiting so much that I actually had to put a towel on the floor in front of her, a towel over her and a towel over me just to feed her.� After yet another visit to the doctor we where instructed to try putting rice in her formula with the thinking that if we thickened out her formula she wouldn't vomit after eating.� It didn't work.


At this point my husband and I had run out of options.� We had a two year old son that needed our attention and a very sick infant.� I called her pediatrician and told her that she needed to see her now and something needed to be done that very day to help her.� The doctor agreed to see us and decided that not only did she need a new hypoallergenic formula but she would also need a Gastroenteroligist at New England Medical Center's Floating Hospital for Children.


Amber's doctor at New England Medical Center did wonders for her and our family.� Test's where done that confirmed that she was not only milk allergic but had reflux.� She was put on medication for the reflux and we where told to continue giving her the hypoallergenic formula.� Both did the trick.