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Symptoms and feeding patterns in the first year of life
Insights
Extensive infant symptoms in the first year are often unrelated to diet. True incidence of cow
Area of Science:
- Pediatrics
- Allergy and Immunology
- Nutrition
Background:
- Infant symptomatology is common in the first year of life.
- Dietary factors, particularly cow's milk, are often suspected as causes.
- Accurate diagnosis of food-related symptoms in infants is challenging.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze infant symptoms and their potential association with food ingestion, specifically cow's milk.
- To investigate the incidence and diagnostic challenges of cow's milk allergy in infants.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of symptom and food diaries from 482 infants over their first 12 months.
- Observational data collection with limited diagnostic testing for suspected cow's milk reactions.
Main Results:
- Most infant symptoms were not linked to food or cow's milk ingestion.
- Only one infant underwent definitive withdrawal and challenge testing for cow's milk.
- Evidence suggesting cow's milk as a cause for symptoms was tenuous in most cases.
Conclusions:
- The majority of infant symptoms in the first year are likely unrelated to cow's milk.
- Diagnostic challenges persist in identifying true cow's milk allergy in infants.
- Further research is needed to establish reliable diagnostic criteria.
Abstract:
With the help of family doctors, mothers and infant welfare sisters, we report an analysis of symptom and food diaries maintained throughout the first twelve months of life on 482 infants. This reveals the existence of extensive symptomatology in the first year of life--most of which was clearly unrelated to ingestion of foods or cow's milk. Our efforts to define the true incidence of cow's milk allergy have been unsuccessful. Altogether, 77 of the 482 diaries have revealed symptomatology at some time in the year which could conceivably have been associated with cow's milk ingestion. But, in only one of these 77 children were withdrawal and challenge tests carried out to determine whether the symptomatology disappeared on withdrawal of cow's milk and reappeared on its reintroduction into the diet. Most of the remaining 76 children had long periods of complete freedom from symptoms whilst taking cow's milk, and the evidence of any association with cow's milk was generally very tenuous. Soya substitutes were introduced in 13 cases, and cow's milk was temporarily discontinued in another 11 cases. Only 16 of these 77 children continued to experience chronic symptoms during the last two weeks of their first year.