I know on my blog I said that I may hold off on rice (in my diet) to see what it does to NJ's eczema. Well I changed my mind and decided to go a whole new direction- to start giving him rice cereal again. He will be 6 mo old on Tuesday, so I thought I'd go ahead and try again. (I had stopped at 5 mo and decided to wait b/c of his allergies)
He took it very well and his tongue thrust is gone, ate the whole thing. No reactions at all. BUT after a few hours I saw that there were little tiny hives around his mouth and on his cheeks. I mean they are tiny but still noticeable. He doesn't seem bothered by them.
Is this normal? Maybe I didn't clean him off as well as I thought I did? Or does my half-Asian boy indeed have a RICE ALLERGY!? Should I...
1. Keep trying rice for a few more days and see what happens
2. Skip over to oatmeal
3. Don't do any more solids until his 6 mo appt (Tuesday)?
12 comments:
Our pediatrician recommended that we skip the grains as starter foods and to wait until 6 months to start anything. We began with sweet potato diluted with breastmilk. Because NJ has allergies, you might want to make your own foods with higher quality produce (preferably organics). The jar baby foods or the prepared ones sometimes contain ingredients that be the cuase of the allergen and not so much the rice or whatever itself.
I would skip it and wait for the doctor...but I'm just a paranoid mommy! =)
Call me adventurous, but I tried the rice cereal again today, just to see. There were no hives. I think actually the "hives" were just a rash from him sucking in his upper lip so much.
Julia- I probably will end up making my own food for that very same reason. I gave him Earth's Best rice cereal which seemed to be the only kind that seemed the "purest." If you skipped the grains, how did you make sure Chloe goe the iron that she needed? Do they have supplements for infants?
I'd say number 3, ask his Ped before youdo anything. My girl never had these tiny red things around her mouth after her first rice cereal. I didn't do rice cereal with Hayden b/c research says there's no reason to eat rice cereal (unless u have allergies)...
I make my own rice cereal, which isn't "iron fortified" as the commerical kind is. The Pediatrician got onto me about this, but then Kathryn had her 9-month check-up they tested her blood for iron (this is routine at the 9-month appointment), and her iron levels were fine so the Dr said to just keep doing what I'm doing. Then again, Kathryn does eat a lot of Cheerios and Yo Baby Plus yogurt (which contains 45% RDA of iron), so maybe she's getting enough iron from those things...
Update: he has hives again, around his mouth and now on his cheeks. I don't know if it's the rice that caused it or what. It could be his regular eczema just spreading or it could have been caused from heat (it's hard to keep him cool when we're out and about!) Arg, I'm tired of playing detective. But I will stop rice for now just to be safe.
my thoughts are write it all down - what he ate, might have touched new, where he went new about an hour before you noticed the hives. Rhett has an allergy to something, not food, but he gets red blotches around his chin and the inside of his elbows. He seems to have a skin allergy. I've written down what he was around, his reaction, what we did, and when or how long it was until it went away. something we do is give him a bath when we notice the breakout. it clears his up w/in 30 min. i don't think that would help a food allergy but if you gave him a bath and it was still there maybe you can know that it is in fact a food allergy and not just being hot. i will say Rhett's excema does get worse when he's hot. it could be that he touched something and then put his hands in his mouth. those are just my 2 cents.
i would check with your pediatrician for sure... i would wait though... i like to err on the side of caution
Hey Kyung -
I'd agree w/ Kristalyn on the bath - that's the one thing I do that helps clear up Rachel's eczema. Also, I would think that if the hives appeared right away the last time, they should follow the same pattern if it was the rice, but like others said, it's good to be cautious.
One other thing, Rachel takes a vitamin (as long as I can remember it) that has iron and I think vitamins K (and maybe D too)....it's Trivisol. You can get it over the counter.
~Jill
If NJ doesn't have iron deficiency, which I think the pediatrician does check at some point (forgot when though), then you wouldn't have to go out of your way to give him iron. It is only when he becomes more dependent on solid food as a nutritional source than on breastmilk that you have to be more concerned about iron intake. Chloe got most of her iron through eating leafy greens and the iron-fortied yogurt. When she was eating finger foods, the cereals had iron in it. We never had an anemia issue, and I bf-ed her just over 13 months.
As for baths and hives, we don't soap up Chloe every day. Dry skin and heat aggravate her eczema so we keep her baths just hotter than lukewarm (comfortable temp) and wash her with soap as needed. Mainly the areas that get most dirty are hands, bottom, and hair. If she's really grimey, of course we'll soap her up. As soon as she is out of the bath, I slather her with a thick layer of Aquaphor and maybe a little bit of hydrocortisone on the affected eczema patches as needed.
By the way, it isn't a requirement to give NJ solid foods right at 6 months or just because he is at the age where "most" babies get solids.
Nutritionally, he can live off of breastmilk for a while longer even so don't be afraid that he'll become malnourished because you're having to stop rice cereal.
It is a good idea to keep a journal of everything that you've given NJ to eat and what the reactions are. Also if NJ is having some reaction to rice, you might check to see if there are any traces of wheat in the food too.
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Is he drooling alot? My kids always got little red bumps on their cheeks and chin when they were going through a drooling spell.
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