Shortly after adopting our three week old son it became evident that he was having a problem holding down almost everything that he was fed. His skin was also getting small bumps over most areas of his body. When he was about 4 months old he started to itch and scratch affected areas until they would bleed. He would even pull out his hair in areas of his head that itched. Eventually we found the only way to stop severe scratching and hair pulling was to cover his hands with athletic socks and tape them to his arms so that he could not remove them. This problem persisted for months. After many visits with his pediatrician and several specialists it seemed that every suggestion we tried did not work. Eventually one of the doctors suggested that we look at switching to organic baby food.
Our son was too young to undergo the conventional method of allergy testing, but this doctor suspected that our child was probably having an adverse reaction to some of the chemicals that may be present in non-organic foods. We discovered that non-organically grown foods could possibly contain residue from the pesticides and chemicals used in the growing process. Further more growth hormone and other chemicals could be present in non-organically raised meat products.
ORGANIC BABY FOOD
We decided to switch to organic baby food and organic rice milk. This decision was really a no-brainer for us, but we lived in a small town and were concerned that finding organic baby food would present a problem.
I originally thought that we were going to have to make special trips to a health food store that was over 30 miles away to find organic baby food for our son. This wasn't a big problem but it would be a bit of an inconvenience considering our busy schedules.
Fortunately, we found organic baby food and rice milk in our local grocery store. Even more surprising, we discovered that there were many organic baby food choices. Our son made the switch with ease and he seemed to enjoy the organic rice milk as well.
The organic baby food did not completely stop the digestion and skin problems but it did help. The problems continued but not every meal, not even every day. Through trial and good record keeping we started to realize that the problems would occur after eating certain types of foods.
When our son was almost three, his doctor decided that he should undergo the allergy testing regiment. This test would in-tale pricking his back with about 40 needles that were coated with different food and chemical samples. Any of the needle pricked areas that became inflamed (similar to a mosquito bite) would indicate that our son was allergic to the substance from that needle.
About half way through the test our son began screaming that he couldn't breath and he thought he was going to die. In fact he was going into respiratory distress and within minutes the testing was stopped and my wife and I were rushed out of the room.
We later learned that he was so allergic to some of the samples that instead of the area around each needle prick swelling to the size of a mosquito bite if there were an allergic reaction, our sons entire back had become one giant continuous welt. The doctor's office staff had become so concerned about his condition that they were just minutes away from calling an Aero-Med Helicopter to take our son to the hospital.
The staff did get things under control and no helicopter flight was needed. Eventually the doctor discovered that our son was allergic to many foods including whole grain bread and pasta, all dairy foods and most meats, all fish and shell fish, he is even allergic to soy products. Also almost every type of scented soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, lotion and all house hold pets and cleaning products. We are told that the probable allergic reaction to fish or peanuts would be death.
Our son's diet is very limited but he can consume beef, chicken and turkey. He can also eat most fruits and many vegetables. Breakfast cereal, all snacks and milk must be of a rice base. He is now 9 years old and is sad about all the restrictions on his diet, but he handles it well.
We are so thankful that before we knew the full extent of the problem that we were led to try the organic baby food and rice milk. We believe that omitting the chemicals really helped reduce the intensity of the allergic reactions. Thankfully we picked mostly fruit and vegetable based foods along with the rice milk, (the only type of milk that he can drink to this day), this surely kept a bad situation from becoming a tragedy.
Natural Little one Foods - Will it Support your baby With Allergies?
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