This Would Be Easier...

If there were an owners manual, or if you got a practice run.

If you've read any of my earlier posts, you'd know that BG had a cow's milk allergy. Nothing serious, the doc said. Most babies outgrow them, and the are more common than you think. (It's not the same as being lactose intolerant--it's an allergy to milk solids.) No problem, there's soy formula, which has actually been around since the 50s.

However, there's mounting evidence, that because of the increased exposure to estrogens in soy, soy formula may have serious repercussions for developing ovaries and reproductive systems. It's one more example of how you try to do what's best for your child, all the while you may just be fucking them up.

What choice did we really have? My wife breast feed as long as she could before her milk supply started to go. Staying at home to nurse all the time wasn't an option. And neither was traditional formula based on cow's milk. So now, we have to worry about whether or not feeding BG soy milk will have an adverse impact on her ability to have children twenty (or more, hopefully!) years from now. When they say you never stop worrying about them, they weren't kidding!

I'm trying to put it out of my mind, because, well, there's nothing that can be done. She's not eating as much formula now anyway, since she's on solid foods, and now that she's older, we're going to try cow's milk formula again to see if she can tolerate it, but if she can't, it's not like we can stop feeding her. So what are we to do?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I suppose every decision that we make in the lives of our children run the risk of having some long term effect on their well-being. We do our best to ensure a happy, healthy life for BG, and that's all we can do. But decisions like this really suck.

Constipation

I have a constipated baby. Remember that cow's milk allergy? My wife had cut nearly all dairy out of her diet. Well, now that my wife is back at work full-time, it's very hard for her to pump. So we've been supplementing with more formula. And most formula is made with milk proteins.

As BG has been eating more formula (we were using the Enfamil Lipil) she started breaking out again... our doc recommended switching to the soy-based Enfamil ProSobee. It worked like a charm. Her rash cleared up, she's not nearly as gassy, and she spits up less. But now she's constipated. I hope it's just from the change from one formula to another, but apparently soy-based formulas can cause constipation.

It's actually pretty funny. She'll be playing and then she'll scrunch her face up and turn red and grunt. I mean, I know it shouldn't be cute... she's having trouble going to the bathroom, and probably quite uncomfortable. But I'll be damned if it isn't cute. Our hope is that this will pass, since she's only been on the ProSobee less than a week, but we'll see.