Our eldest son (L) was diagnosed with milk protein intolerance at 6 weeks old when we found tiny drops of red blood in his diaper. The drops were mixed with his  stool. He also had green mucousy stools.  He was exclusively breastfeeding and we soon found out that proteins from dairy, beef, and soy that his mom (Cynthia) was consuming were passing through her breastmilk and causing a type 4 (intolerance reaction) allergy. On a dairy, beef, soy elimination diet Cynthia was able to clear her  breastmilk from any of these offending proteins. Cynthia was recommended by the allergist that followed us to keep soya lecithin and soyabean oil in my diet because these theoretically contain no proteins. Despite the restrictive diet he remained terribly colicky and a terrible sleeper. In all other ways he thrived beautifully (i.e. motor milestones were on time or early, he talked early etc.. ) and best of all I was able to breastfeed him until he was 13 months old.

17 months later we gave birth to our first  daughter (O). At two weeks old she became extremely fussy and knowing that MSPI is highly hereditary Cynthia decided to go on the same diet as she did with L  so that she could continue breastfeeding. At six weeks old we discovered drops of blood in her diaper and her stool was green and mucousy despite already being on the restrictive diet. At this point our peadiatrician was at a loss and contacted the GI Department at the Montreal Children ’s Hospital. The GI doctor advised that I put her on an amino acid based formula called Neocate.  I was devastated that I would have to stop breastfeeding despite the fact that she was a very happy, thriving baby. Compared to my son she was sooooo happy. My peadiatrician believed in the benefits of breastmilk just so long as we could get the bleeding under control and she continued to gain weight. I was immediately put in contact with the GI team’s dietician who was suprised and impressed that I wanted to continue breastfeeding, she also advised me that if I could follow her dietary recommendations, breastmilk (minus the offending proteins) would be better for my daughter.
I felt a surge of hope and determination and at that point I would have done anything to stop the bleeding. I was told to give up soy lecithin, soyabean oil and legumes (chickpeas, kidney beans etc..)
After one week of this diet, my daughter was still having drops of blood (she was now 7 weeks old). The GI doctors were sure I must have been missing something in my diet but the dietician and my peadiatrician knew that I checked any food, vitamin, or medication that went in my mouth. Knowing this, and that my daughter was so happy and gaining weight well they supported me in continuing breastfeeding and trying the elimination of other foods.
At seven weeks old we gave up the following foods on top of the beef, dairy, soy, legumes:
- Eggs
-Nuts
-Seeds
-Cocoa
-Wheat

We also began a trial of pancreatic enzymes that were supposed to further break down the foods I’d eaten. The recommendation came from the Breastfeeding Clinic I was being followed at but we were also encouraged by the GI doctor that was following us. I took “Cotazym”. 2 Capsules with each meal and 1 with each snack.

The GI doctor also encouraged us to do an endoscopy on our daughter. We nor our peadiatrician liked the autocratic way the test was pushed on us. We were given all of 1 minute to decide if we consented for the test that would be done the next day. The endoscopy confirmed nodular hyperplasia and high eosiniphils in the gut. This confirmed that she was having a type 4 allergies (intolerance reactions in the gut).

By 9 weeks old there was no more drops of blood and she was still thriving! We were thrilled and I was learning to eat very differently. Having been through something similar for my son gave me the strength and knowledge to get through this.

At 12 weeks old on advice of the GI dietician I introduced wheat back in my diet with no bleeding!
At 16 weeks old eggs were reintroduced into my diet but unfortunately we saw blood within 24 hours. The blood went away 24 hours later once I stopped the eggs in my diet.
At 19 weeks we introduced cocoa into my diet but we also saw blood.
At 5 months we gave rice cereal to our daughter and within 24 hours she had blood in her diaper. It stopped once we stopped the cereal.
At this point we were again at a loss and very scared for our daughter.

The dietician guiding us was an incredible support unlike the GI doctor in her department. She scared us and threatened us that we had brought this harm upon our daughter. Thank goodness for the support of our peadiatrician and the dietician because our strength and conviction that we were doing the right thing was beginning to waver.
With the encouragement of our families we filed a complaint with the ombudsman and our case was transfered to another more empathetic doctor!

I continued breastfeeding on the restricted diet and waited until our daugther was seven months old before we tried food again. The Montreal Jewish General’s Breastfeeding Clinic (Goldfarb ) was a great support, reminding me that babies can thrive on breastmilk for longer than the first six months as long as they take an iron supplement. We started with carrots rather than another cereal.
We waited anxiously those first few days but we thrilled to see that she did not bleed.
We continued on adding apple, squash, pear, zucchini, peach , chicken, lamb, turkey, barley cereal, oatmeal cereal, blueberries, wheat and a bunch more!
We were so relieved!
The best part of all is that are daughter was more than thriving. She jumped from the 25th% to the 80% from the 6-10 months old! She was also a terrific sleeper and developing normally. The only medical problem was that her iron was getting a bit low. I was very worried about this but our peadiatrician was not worried at this point and just upped her iron supplements and scheduled more blood tests.

Today we had our follow up in GI and we are very excited because she is now 11 months old and thriving so we have the go ahead to begin adding foods back in my diet. Here is a list of the foods that I took out of my diet to ensure that my daughter would stop bleeding. Note we don’t have concrete evidence that all of the following foods caused her to bleed but at the time it was decided that we were not going to play around with a 7 week olds gut.
Here are the foods:
-Milk
-Eggs
-Beef
-Dairy
-Soy (including soyabean oil and soya lecithin)
-Nuts
-Seeds
-Cocoa
-Legumes

Early on we were able to add fish and wheat back into my diet.

Our daughter grew and thrived while being breastfed, and eventually outgrew her intolerance.

Our third child, a girl (E.) was born in the summer of 2009.  Since we had a history of MSPI, the dietician we work with recommended that Cynthia start a restricted diet at 33 weeks gestation.  After our daughter was born, we saw a few specks of blood early on and Cyntiha eliminated eggs from her diet as well.  The blood cleared up and E continues to grow well.

UPDATE (12/10/09)  E. is now 10 weeks old, and we saw another speck of blood in her diaper yesterday.  We are monitoring her diapers closely, but have not seen any more blood since.  Cynthia has not removed anything else from her diet.