Friend's Newborn Possible Enterocolitis - Find Info?

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Thu May 03, 2012 10:46 am

A friend texted me this morning that her 1-month-old may have enterocolitis. The MD told her she is going to wait two or three weeks to see if the condition resolves itself, and not to get on the internet to find information because she would just scare herself. Naturally I got on the internet to look around. I suspect it is not necrotizing enterocolitis, or I would think the MD would be a little more concerned. I got the impression that the alternative diagnosis is a fissure.

Has anyone had any experience with this? Do you have any good info sources?

Zizzle · Post by **Zizzle** » Thu May 03, 2012 11:26 am

What's the symptom? Frequent and bloody diapers? It's usually caused by cow's milk intolerance, or soy. Is she breastfeeding? If so, if it were me, I would cut dairy, soy, (and probably gluten) out of my diet ASAP. It can take up to 2 weeks to get out of her milk, but at least if it works, she'll know it's not something more serious, and baby will be much happier. If she doesn't do this, and the symptoms continue, the next step will be stopping breastmilk and switching to expensive, unappetizing, hypoallergenic formula (Nutramigen or Alimentum). If she waits, baby will be so sick, there will not be time to get the allergens out of her milk and formula will be the only option.

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Thu May 03, 2012 2:00 pm

Good info, Zizzle. I will tell her. Baby much happier would be good. She nurses all the time. In fact, I have held her for maybe a minute because she wanted to be reattached so badly. Thanks!!

Zizzle · Post by **Zizzle** » Thu May 03, 2012 2:41 pm

If the doctors insist on hypoallergenic formula ASAP, she could pump and dump and try again once the food proteins are out of her milk. You'll need to give her a quick and dirty lesson on completely altering her diet STAT! I'm not 100% confident on the gluten elimination, so that might be a suggestion, but not an absolute requirement. Minimally, she could avoid the major sources of gluten, but not worry about cross-contamination. She will have to be vigorous about milk avoidance. Not sure how strict one must be with soy -- I imagine soy oil, even fermented soy where the proteins are altered, might be OK. Of course if she sees great results, she might be able to add the others back in, once she's confident about which one is the cause. It might be smart to avoid other major kid allergens too, like peanuts, maybe eggs.

Post by **tex** » Thu May 03, 2012 4:08 pm

Remember this thread?

http://www.perskyfarms.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15241

Tex

Stanz · Post by **Stanz** » Thu May 03, 2012 4:30 pm

I'm sorry to hear this, it's hard enough to deal with a newborn, this must be very stressful to your friend and her baby.

I found this information and found that if you do a search and eliminate the word necrotizing, you find much more information that could relate to a bacterial cause that can be passed in breast milk to the infant.

http://www.childrenscolorado.org/pdf/al ... olitis.pdf

Don't know if this is any help, but it seems reasonable to me - the resident bacteria queen.

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Thu May 03, 2012 8:38 pm

Wow, you all are amazing!! Lots of stuff besides a sick baby going on in this gal's life, so if she has a plan of action, I know it will help her out. I am going to consolidate information and send her an e-mail tomorrow. I was going to visit tomorrow but she has a schedule conflict so I won't see her until Monday, and we can talk about it then.

THANK YOU !!! YOU ROCK !!!

MBombardier · Post by **MBombardier** » Mon May 07, 2012 11:16 pm

Update: I sent information to my friend over the weekend, and spent time with her today. It turns out that part of Mia's problem was that one of her ribs had not snapped back into place after birth (they could feel the lump), but a chiropractor fixed that. I got to rock her to sleep and she slept on me for over an hour.

Mia's on Alimentum now, and seems to be doing fine. My friend is reluctant to stop nursing, but she is more reluctant to give up dairy because she's very skinny and that's where she gets much of her protein and fat. She's afraid that she would eat something with dairy in it and Mia would get sick again. She will be going back to work in July, and would have stopped breast feeding then anyway. I gave her a little education about blood and mucus, and the reason for the different stool colors and consistency.

She knows now to pay attention to digestive issues as the baby grows, and I told her to stave off gluten in the baby's food as long as possible. Mia's older half-sister had bad digestive problems when she was little, so my friend is at least a little familiar with food issues.

My friend feels much better now about the baby's health, and about how blase the MD was when she took her in. Thanks again for your help!