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If you mention the possibility of cutting dairy from a child’s diet, most moms will start to panic. The truth is that unless an allergy is diagnosed and put in writing, parents may find it very difficult to withhold dairy from their child. Sometimes a child have to become severely ill before parents – as a last resort – try a dairy-free lifestyle.

IS DAIRY GOOD OR BAD?

There is no simple answer to this question. Some children will thrive on cow’s milk. Others will get really sick with symptoms like constant ear infection, excessive phlegm, nasal congestion, asthma and eczema – to name a few.

The question of whether dairy causes phlegm is often one of controversy. Some physicians are of the opinion that there is no scientific proof that this is the case. Others, including myself, are of the opinion that dairy definitely have an effect on mucus. Should a child live in an environment with a lot of allergens , like pollen for example, he will have a tendency towards phlegm, nasal congestion and sinusitis. Milk thickens mucus that is already present, making it difficult for the body to get rid of. When mucus becomes stagnant it becomes the perfect breeding ground for disease-causing bacteria and viruses.

If a child is allergic to dairy his body will increase the mucus production as a normal immune response. Thus a child will get sick more often, putting his immune system under tremendous strain.

As a personal testimony I can mention that all three my kids (aged 10, 7 and 6) responded very negatively to dairy from a very early age. We tried to cut dairy out of our diets as far as possible. Recently we moved to a small town in the Karoo with lots of clean air and very little allergens in the environment. For the first time in their lives they can have an ice-cream without as much as a cough the next day. I realized that we often underestimate the effect of environmental allergens on our bodies.  Foods that used to impact very negatively on us, now seems to have very little  influence in a different environment.

ALLERGY OR INTOLERANCE

Allergies and intolerance have become buzzwords in parenting circles. Understanding the difference between the two can often make it easier to keep our kids healthy.

Dairy intolerance is the body’s inability to successfully digest lactose (milk sugar.) The symptoms are limited to the gastrointestinal area and include nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, flatulence(gas), constipation and feeling bloated. This is also referred to as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). It can take between 30 minutes to 2 days for symptoms to show itself.

A dairy allergy is a immune response to the protein found in milk. Symptoms can be any of the following:

• Abdominal pain
• Dark circles under the eyes
• Nasal congestion
• Over-production of phlegm (mucus)
• Ear infection
• Sinus infection
• Tonsilitis or other throat infections
• Asthma
• Eczema
• Fatigue
• Irritability
• Weak immune system
• Reflux (bringing up milk after consumption)
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• poor growth
• ADD/ADHD
• Blood in urine or stools
• Rectal itching or fissures
• Anaphylactic shock (very rare cases)

It is often very difficult to make the connection between the above mentioned symptoms and food containing dairy. Dairy is sometimes hidden in foods one wouldn’t suspect. Terms like Whey and Casein often appears on food labels but few people are aware that these are the dairy proteins that cause a lot of trouble.Allergy  symptoms often vary in intensity and they come and go and may often show up hours or days after the food is absorbed into the system. Sometimes the link between being frequently ill and dairy is obvious without even having to confirm the suspicion with an allergy test though an allergy test can point out foods we didn’t even consider as an allergen. Deciding on which test to perform is not always an easy one. There are many tests and just as much criticism regarding there accuracy.  This is a debate in itself.

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