Have you ever wondered if something you are eating is affecting your baby through your breastmilk? Some babies experience intolerances to certain proteins in breastmilk, resulting in undesirable symptoms such as skin issues and digestive concerns. Today, we are going to be talking about the connection between a mother's diet and potential adverse reactions in the infant, and what you can do in this situation.
Guest Speaker
In this episode we talk with Maya, an occupational therapist and mom who developed an app called Map my Milk. It is a specialized digital health platform designed to help breastfeeding families navigate infant food protein intolerances and allergies. The app helps families find correlations between mom's diet and baby's symptoms. Maya developed this app after first hand experience with her two kids. For her first kid, she removed dairy from her diet and the symptoms went away. However, when she did so for her second child, the child still displayed adverse symptoms. This left her with three options:
- Stop breastfeeding
- Do a total elimination diet (a diet plan that excludes several major food groups)
- Find out what was causing her baby's symptoms
She did not want to discontinue breastfeeding. She also did not want to cut almost all of the food out of her diet and just hoped it fixed the symptoms. So, she developed this app in order to help parents with option 3 and find out what might be contributing to their baby's symptoms.
Protein Exchange Through Breastmilk
When you breastfeed, a transfer of protein occurs from mom to baby. The mom's body breaks down the proteins in the food she eats, then that transfers to the baby through breastfeeding, and the baby breaks them down. Sometimes these proteins can cause adverse reactions in the infant. The most common condition is Cow's Milk Protein Allergy (CMPA), which affects 4 to 13% of infants. Links at the end of this post contain more detailed information about CMPA.
Symptoms
- Continuous crying or colic
- Rash or eczema
- Blood or mucous in the infant's stool
- Vomiting or reflux
- Hives
- Coughing
- Angioedema: swelling of the lips, tongue, or throat
- Diarrhea
- Abdominal cramps
Map My Milk
The app allows moms to track what they are eating and the symptoms they are seeing in their infant. It then performs a pattern analysis to find correlations between the two. It is very important to note that Map My Milk is not a diagnostic tool, meaning it should not exclusively be used to make medical decisions. Instead, it is a tool for new parents to track these things and help find possible explanations. Then, they have concrete data and information to bring to their doctor in order to get answers.
Using the App
The app involves completing the log form. Parents can log the food they are eating, the formula, or baby solids, and log the symptoms they see in their infant. The app also has a label scanner which will quickly tell you which triggers are in the food. The app is very customizable to meet the needs of the family. For example, you can specify what time frame you want to see correlations from, such as 24 hours or 27 hours after eating something. The app also stores all the pictures you take of rashes and diapers in one place. To sign up, go to mapmymilk.com and provide an email. No name or child information, other than symptoms, is required. Every user gets a free 14 day trial and then can choose to either stay on the free plan or upgrade for more advanced features.
Why Use the App and Not Something Else?
- The app helps you self advocate to your healthcare providers. You do not have to try to remember what you have been seeing at home, you can show physical examples and pictures.
- Trying to track this without an app or tool is so much harder. It takes more time to try to connect the dots on your own, and you are already having to focus on so much during postpartum.
- We caution against using AI systems to figure out baby's triggers because it is not always correct and reliable. Map My Milk has no AI, it is just math.
Having a baby who is allergic to something you are eating is a huge disruption to routine and quality of life, and the 4th trimester is hard enough!
Resources
This article is a companion to an episode of the Functional Fourth Trimester podcast.