Need Quotes for Press Release!

Jessica - posted on 07/09/2010

I was commited to breastfeeding but if I would have had a pediatrician tell me that I needed to stop due to MSPI I would have (not realizing that their were ways around it). Fortunatly, my son's doctor is amazing and once diagnosed w/MSPI her response was, "you're planning on breastfeeding for a while right?" and then she preceeded to help me through diet choices. I was dairy and soy free from the time my son was 7 weeks old until he was 9 months old. He is almost a year old and because of the support I got from his doctor I am still breastfeeding and have no plans to ever put him on formula. I am so thankful for her. She helped me give my son the gift of health and she gave me an incredible bonding experience with my son.

N - posted on 07/08/2010

I was in training to become a family physician when I had the first of my three sons. I had decided to breastfeed my precious little baby for all the good reasons. During my medical training, I had learnt over and over again all the great benefits of breasfeeding. I had not come across the condition called MSPI. Not until my sweet little angel started having very mucousy stools with streaks of blood in them. That was around six weeks of age. Panicked, I went to the pediatric ER where they told me the most likely diagnosis was milk and soy protein intolerance and that it was only temporary. My baby would most likely grow out of it before the age of three. I was told to eliminate dairy and soy from my diet. But my baby kept on bleeding despite all my efforts and dietary sacrifices. I was referred to a nutritionist who taught me how to carefully read labels and recognize the ingredients that contain dairy and soy proteins. That's when I got the shock of my life. I realized that the allergens I had to avoid were present in almost every food I was used to eating! I tried to be a good mother and avoid them all. I barely knew how to cook to start out with and now I had to come up with recipes for a very restricted diet. I lost so much weight I actually became lighter than before I was pregnant! . I was hungry and irritable. I could'nt eat what I loved anymore. I couldn't eat out any more. My poor husband had to endure me through it all! It's hard to adjust to having a baby, let alone a baby with food intolerance. I breastfed for five months before I gave up: my baby was still bleeding from time to time and that stressed me out. Even with the help of the dietician, I still had to rely on myself to find ingredients that were safe. I needed time to look for safe recipes and even more time to make them. It was just too much to handle for a first-time mother like me. I was wasting away! So I started giving my baby Neocate. It took three years for my son to get over his intolerance. During these three years I widened my repertoire of recipes. I became an expert label reader. I discovered new safe foods such as horse meat, duck and all kinds of substitutes such as rice milk. I discovered soy-free dairy free chocolate chips and chicken broth, for example. I turned to web ressources such as MSPI diet moms and MSPI mama for recipes. I googled safe recipes too. My second baby boy didn't have MSPI but my third son has it. And guess what? He is now six months old and I am proud to say that I am breastfeeding him successfully and am planning to hopefully breastfeed him as long as it takes until he is over his intolerance. I am very careful with my diet. I am very experienced by now and it is going great. It's not easy and I don't blame any mother for discontinuing breastfeeding when her child has MSPI. It was the healthier choice physically and psychologically for me the first time around. But what I am saying is that mothers of children with MSPI should be given as much support as possible to enable them to breastfeed successfully if they want to keep on doing so. Breastfeeding a child with MSPI is hard but it is feasible with the appropriate ressources and support. And believe me, it's worth the effort! Every time I cuddle with my baby to feed him my precious breastmilk, every time I feel his warm breath against my skin, I forget the temporary sacrifice. Instead, I am filled with soothing peace and gratifying happiness. That is this mother's reward.
Nelly Tewfik, MD, Montreal