|
Alternatives for Your Milk Allergic Baby |
 Perhaps one of the most common infant allergies that parents have to contest with is a baby allergy to milk. Because milk is such an important component of the diet of any growing infant, when your baby turns out to be allergic to milk, that can present a real challenge. It hard to put together a diet that will provide your little one with the nutrition
she needs without having the resource of healthy milk to give her.
But when your little one goes through the terrible suffering that infant milk allergy symptoms can bring, you will do whatever it takes to replace that nutrition with some other food product. For many, soy or rice milk products seem to offer the solution they are seeking. But there are some reasons to use caution in depending too heavily on these two milk substitutes to fill the void that cow's milk left behind because of your baby's allergies.
There is a good reason that whole cow's milk has become such a staple as a source of nutrition for babies. Cow's milks has a lot of the essential nutrients your baby needs in her first years of life. As much as we might like the concept of rice or soy milk serving the same function, these milk substitutes simply do not bring with them the same nutritional value that cow's milk is able to provide to your child.
When researching soy as a possible milk replacement, keep the differences between soy milk and soy formula in mind. If your child's pediatrician recommends soy formula as a way to feed your infant instead of using milk, follow the doctor's recommendations closely. Soy milk is simply not going to give your baby the same nutritional support. But soy formula is designed to provide all of the nutritional needs of your child so it is more a more reliable substitute for cow's milk.
The obvious important nutrient that must be replaced when your baby's milk allergy makes cow's milk unacceptable is calcium. But cow's milk also has beneficial fats that are the result of giving your infant a milk product that is produced by an animal. Soy and rice milk simply do not come from the same place so they are not able to provide those fats and nutrients as well. That is why doctors recommend whole cow's milk for any baby who is weaning or has weaned from nursing in the first couple years of life. In addition to calcium, cows milk provide A, B12 and other vitamins are important to your baby's development.
Both rice and soy milk are quite low in the healthy fats that babies need to get from milk. While rice and soy milks appeal to adults who may be dieting, for a baby, those proteins and fats are crucial to the healthy development of the child. It is possible to find full fat soy milk, which may be able to give your baby the nutrients she needs to grow properly and stay healthy in her infancy. But be sure you check the other nutritional supplements that is being put into that full fat soy milk. If that product is not fulfilling the other nutritional needs of your baby that cow's milk may have given to her, you should look for other food sources of those vitamins.
If your baby is nursing, she will get all of her essential fats and vitamins from your breast milk. That is one good reason to extend the time of nursing through the first year or even through the second year, particularly if your infant has had an allergic reaction to cow's milk.
That first year of life and the time of weaning is critically important to the development of your child. The presence of an infant milk allergy does complicate the matter. So take the time to learn everything possible about any replacement foods that you give to your baby to substitute for the milk allergen. In that way, you can be assured your little one will get all she needs from her diet during these very important first months and years of life.
|