Sick bubba and Dr says No milk??

[visitor1]

I need some help if i can.

For the last 3 days/nights my little girl has been sick. High temps, not sleeping, loss of appetite, hard to settle etc.

Have been using Nurofen and has been keeping the temp at bay finally.

Anyhow tonight she broke out in an almighty rash and diarreha (sp?) on top of everything else so we took her to the clinic to get cheched over.

The Dr said she had a viral infection and that the rash was normal. But the runny poo wasnt, and to stop giving all milk and just offer water or juice to her??

This seemed very odd to me....

So i need some help... do i continue with her bottle each time? Or give her something else... i was under the impression she needs her milk still.

If i am supposed to stop milk what else do i give her besides water???

[~Saram~]

I had a dr suggest this to me also but DS was older (18mths I think) and dr told me to stop BF and only give clear fluids WTF! Needless to say I ignored him. I would say if you are giving her her normal formula and there have been no changes to it and she wants a bottle than give it to her. I wouldn't be giving her cows milk though just whatever baby formula she generally has - did you mean formula or is she on cows milk?

Maybe up her intake of water and diluted fruit juice and we were given these iceblock rehydration things. Hope your DD is better soon

[Lollie]

Go with your gut instinct honey. One of my twins a week or so before he turned 1 was very sick with a viral infection (which tests tell us was the influenzae (a) virus strain), he also copped a bacterial infection on top of the viral and refused to drink milk. We gave him hydralite powder instead. Lucky for us he liked it but the doctors were not concerned about him drinking milk. Said to us that as long as he takes any sort of fluids, we were all good.

Personally I wouldn't stop giving my child milk if they aren't refusing it. But that's just me.

[visitor1]

Sorry yes i meant formula not cows milk!!

[scarlet121]

If she has a gastro bug, the milk will make it worse, and run through her very quick. Generally though when they do have one, they are turned off their milk a little instinctlively.

Most doctors in this instance will recommend the Brat diet, which is bananas, rice, applesauce and toast to give them some sustanence, you can also try watered down hydralyte.

As long as she is hydrated this is the most important thing, if you are unsure you can always call health direct, they are great.

[Schmickers]

Sometimes, gastroenteritis can cause a temporary lactose intolerance. It is for this reason that sometimes health professionals will advise that you stop giving children milk products. this doesn't include human milk as human milk is specifically designed for the gut and actually protects the gut from infections, whereas formula, cow's milk, and other dairy products do not.

If you are giving the child juice, it should be about one in six concetration. Otherwise get some gastrolyte powder from the chemist and make it up according to directions and give them this to drink. You shouldn't give them undiluted soft drink, although I have heard this recommended - it's too sugary and will make their gastro symptoms worse.

Once their symptoms are improving, you can re-introduce milk. Start by giving it half-strength - this is about the only time it's ever right to make your formula up against the directions on the can, if you use formula - and as long as this doesn't make their symptoms worse, you can then go to full-strength feeds.

After your child is better, if they will eat it, try giving them some yoghurt with live cultures in - acidophilus and bifidus. This will help re-establish the normal bacterial balance in their stomach, which will have been upset by the infection, and also by any antibiotics they may have had (on a side note, antibiotics are rarely any good for gastro, as it is usually a viral infection).

[Rach75]

jack had soemthing similiar a while back he was 10mths my idiot dr said take him off formula and put him on carnation milk anyway what I did was put him on soy formula used the tin then put him back on his normal s26 worked a treat

we were told the dairy in normal formula feeds the bug in the tummy therefore having a break and going to soy starves the bug

giv eit go it didn't hurt Jack

[C~Q]

DD has just gotten over gastro she had for 6 days. The Dr told me to keep giving her formula! She wasn't eating any food though so it would have starved her. I did change the formula though, like other Rach I bought soy and i'm about to switch back in a couple of days.

Hope she gets better soon, it's horrible when they're so little and sick

[Tobily]

DD had rotavirus (a really bad gastrobug) at nine months and her doctor told us to dilute her formula.

So we just used half the powder we would normally use in the same quantity of water.

Full strength formula will probably go straight through her or come back up...when we diluted the formula we found DD could keep it down better. We only had to do it for a couple of days.

I hope your little one is feeling better soon.

[aussienic]

DD had rotavirus (a really bad gastrobug) at nine months and her doctor told us to dilute her formula.

So we just used half the powder we would normally use in the same quantity of water.

Full strength formula will probably go straight through her or come back up...when we diluted the formula we found DD could keep it down better. We only had to do it for a couple of days.

I hope your little one is feeling better soon.

I was told to do this as well when my eldest came down with Rota virus at 10 months. He didn't have a bad dose. Just the runs and it worked fine... We slowly increased the powder amount till his little tummy could tolerate it again

I hope your DD gets better soon

[Rouge]

I would be careful with soy if you have a history of allergies. It caused all sorts of problems for Paris when we were told to go onto soy formula (off BM which I regret so much) when Paris had gastro early on. I'm not sure if there is a non lactose formula other than soy but I would be careful.

Goodluck.

*hugs*
Cailin

[Rach75]

actually another option we were given was goats milk formula

[MantaRay]

Intersting that a doctor would recommend giving juice to a child under 1 when it is not recommended until at least age 2 and prefereably much later. Maybe he just assumed you were giving her juice.

From the other replies, it seems that you could either keep giving her the normal formula, or try a lactose free one. As to which way to go, well I would say trust your intsinct. As a Mum you do know what the right thing to do is, you just have to trust your instinct. Whatever you do will be the right thing.

I hope she gets better soon for you.

[~Kim~]

Just a thought though, have you been giving regular Nurofen, sometimes that upsets their tummies too.
Paracetamol is more effective for temperature control and has less gastro and renal side effects.

[nikbrad]

Boston had gastro at 2 weeks of age and I was told to give nothing but Gastrolites for 2 days. I wasn't happy with this so rang the pead who suggested a lactose free formula made at half strength for 24 hours then to continue with the lactose free formula for a few days until I was happy and then swap back to my normal formula. The lactose free definatly helped his tummy and he was great after that. Hope this helps.

[Schmickers]

Goat's milk formula has no cow's milk protein and is also very close in composition to human milk. It can be an alternative for children with gastro, initially at half strength.

[visitor1]

Thanks for all your help. Spoke to the dr and chemist today and they both said just give her half the bottle (so only 100-150ml instead of 220ml) and offer Gastrolyte as much as possible. So thats what ive been doing. Also recommended potato so she has had that today too....hopefulyl see some improvements soon.

[Mother Goose]

Hi Kim,

I was also going to say that the most likely reason for the doctor to suggest witholding the formula was to try and prevent secondary lactose intolerance. If you are concerned about removing formula from her diet at this point in time and do not want to switch to Soy or Goats milk (which can taste dramatically different to normal formula and aren't always accepted by babies), you could try a lactose free version of the formula you are on (if one is available). When you re-introduce lactose formula - do it slowly to prevent any issues.

HTH and hope your little one is better soon.

MG