Cures For Eczema

There can be a lot of different causes of eczema. A gluten-free diet would only be a remedy for a baby whose allergy to gluten was causing the eczema. If it is food related, it could just as easily be a milk protein allergy as you’d also just switched your son to formula. Maybe the proteins through the breast milk were just mild, but through his own consumption was a greater trigger of the eczema. Babies will often outgrow this type of allergy, but you would want to limit exposure, especially at such a young age, to avoid further complications.

My daughter had eczema caused by a mild milk protein allergy. I was breastfeeding, and was able to control it by limiting my dairy intake. Other symptoms increased with her own consumption, so we went very slowly with introduction of dairy. She is now 18 months and has outgrown it.

I would recommend stopping the cereal, especially where there may be an allergy. If the breastfeeding ship has sailed and it is the milk protein, you might need to switch to a formula that is not milk-based. Consult with your doctor. It’s best not to mess around if it is an allergy… you don’t want to make things worse. HC creams, etc… will only treat the symptoms, you need to find the cause.

I think a healthier diet… such as gluten-free, is capable of solving a lot of health problems. I think when most people have a health issue that they just can’t figure out, a better diet will often do the trick.

My son had eczema when he was a few months old. I was nursing him and once I took dairy out of my diet the eczema went away. It only came back when I ate something I shouldn’t. It’s an intolerance or an allergy to something. Take the offending allergen away and the eczema should go away too. You could aways get him allergy tested on your own. Or just play around with his diet. I think you’re on the right track though.

Firstly you have a baby with a suspected allergic disorder (eczema) please work with an allergist. You really, really, really should not start non-breastmilk/formula foods before at least 6 months with an allergic baby, and often 9-12 months is recommended. You would also add foods in a specific order in many cases.

Rice infant cereal tends to contain a lot of crap, beechnut is generally a little better.

The beechnut GOOD EVENING WHOLE GRAIN BROWN RICE CEREAL is gluten free but has another common allergen: milk protein (whey) – a top 9 allergen and a suspected cause of eczema. It also has vitamin E which may or may not be in a peanut oil suspension. It also has a lot of other vitamins which may or may not contain allergens.

The plain rice cereal is also gluten free BUT ditto the vitamin E and other vitamins.

Generally for a child with eczema you try to eliminate all of the top 9 allergens: milk (particularly milk protein not lactose), soy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, sesame seeds, shellfish, wheat, and sulphites. As well as gluten.

Corn and corn syrup are sometimes a problem as well (which is wonderful since there are no hydrolyzed protein formulas sweetened with non-corn syrup sources that I am aware of)

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...
The following organizations recommend that all babies be exclusively breastfed (no cereal, juice or any other foods) for the first 6 months of life (not the first 4-6 months):

* World Health Organization
* UNICEF
* US Department of Health & Human Services
* American Academy of Pediatrics
* American Academy of Family Physicians
* American Dietetic Association
* Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
* Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
* Health Canada

Why Delay Solids?
http://kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/del...

http://www.askdrsears.com/faq/fit18.asp
No, you should wait until he is six months old, unless he is not gaining weight and your doctor advises you to start earlier. This subject keeps coming up, and the answer is still the same: the current recommendations (I didn’t make these up) are to wait until six months before starting solids. Starting foods too early can result in digestive or allergy problems later in life. We have learned that the old guidelines of 4 months are just too soon, and I am willing to bet that in ten years we will be recommending later than 6 months. But for now, the six month guideline seems reasonable. Click here, or here, to read previous FAQ’s on starting solids or learn more by reading our Starting Solid Foods article.

WHY WAIT? 6 REASONS
http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/t032000...

Why not cereal?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/page...
Take rice cereal, for example. Under conventional American wisdom, it’s the best first food. But Butte says iron-rich meat — often one of the last foods American parents introduce — would be a better choice.

Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston, a specialist in pediatric nutrition, says some studies suggest rice and other highly processed grain cereals actually could be among the worst foods for infants.

"These foods are in a certain sense no different from adding sugar to formula. They digest very rapidly in the body into sugar, raising blood sugar and insulin levels" and could contribute to later health problems, including obesity, he says.

The lack of variety in the American approach also could be a problem. Exposing infants to more foods may help them adapt to different foods later, which Ludwig says may be key to getting older children to eat healthier.

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...
Cereal is not at all necessary, particularly the baby cereals. Regular (whole grain) oatmeal is more nutritious for your baby.

http://www.askdrsears.com/faq/ci2.asp
The truth is, there is nothing special about these foods that makes them better to start out with. Babies don’t actually even need rice cereal

http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVDec...
Meat provides additional protein, zinc, B-vitamins, and other nutrients which may be in short supply when the decrease in breast milk occurs. A recent study from Sweden suggests that when infants are given substantial amounts of cereal, it may lead to low concentrations of zinc and reduced calcium absorption (Persson 1998). Dr. Nancy Krebs has shared preliminary results from a large infant growth study suggesting that breastfed infants who received pureed or strained meat as a primary weaning food beginning at four to five months, grow at a slightly faster rate. Dr. Krebs’ premise is that inadequate protein or zinc from complementary foods may limit the growth of some breastfed infants during the weaning period. Both protein and zinc levels were consistently higher in the diets of the infants who received meat (Krebs 1998). Thus the custom of providing large amounts of cereal products and excluding meat products before seven months of age may not meet the nutritional needs of all breastfed infants.
Meat has also been recommended as an excellent source of iron in infancy. Heme iron (the form of iron found in meat) is better absorbed than iron from plant sources. In addition, the protein in meat helps the baby more easily absorb the iron from other foods. Two recent studies (Makrides 1998; Engelmann 1998) have examined iron status in breastfed infants who received meat earlier in the weaning period. These studies indicate that while there is not a measurable change in breastfed babies’ iron stores when they receive an increased amount of meat (or iron), the levels of hemoglobin circulating in the blood stream do increase when babies receive meat as one of their first foods.

http://www.westonaprice.org/children/nou...
Finally, respect the tiny, still-developing digestive system of your infant. Babies have limited enzyme production, which is necessary for the digestion of foods. In fact, it takes up to 28 months, just around the time when molar teeth are fully developed, for the big-gun carbohydrate enzymes (namely amylase) to fully kick into gear. Foods like cereals, grains and breads are very challenging for little ones to digest. Thus, these foods should be some of the last to be introduced. (One carbohydrate enzyme a baby’s small intestine does produce is lactase, for the digestion of lactose in milk.1)

[...]

Babies do produce functional enzymes (pepsin and proteolytic enzymes) and digestive juices (hydrochloric acid in the stomach) that work on proteins and fats.12 This makes perfect sense since the milk from a healthy mother has 50-60 percent of its energy as fat, which is critical for growth, energy and development.13 In addition, the cholesterol in human milk supplies an infant with close to six times the amount most adults consume from food.13 In some cultures, a new mother is encouraged to eat six to ten eggs a day and almost ten ounces of chicken and pork for at least a month after birth. This fat-rich diet ensures her breast milk will contain adequate healthy fats.14
Thus, a baby’s earliest solid foods should be mostly animal foods since his digestive system, although immature, is better equipped to supply enzymes for digestion of fats and proteins rather than carbohydrates.1 This explains why current research is pointing to meat (including nutrient-dense organ meat) as being a nourishing early weaning food.

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content...
The results indicate that in a group of healthy, well growing 12-month-old Swedish infants one-quarter is iron-depleted, although iron deficiency anaemia is rare, and one-third may be zinc-depleted. The high cereal intake of Swedish infants from 6 months of age may have limited the bioavailability of both iron and zinc from the diet.

http://www.jpgn.org/pt/re/jpgn/abstract….
Conclusions: These results confirm that meat as a complementary food for breast-fed infants can provide a rich source of dietary zinc that is well absorbed. The significant positive correlation between zinc intake and exchangeable zinc pool size suggests that increasing zinc intake positively affects metabolically available zinc.

http://www.babyandkidallergies.com/introducing_solids.php
Starting solids too early can trigger food allergies, eczema and asthma, as can exposing your baby to viruses during the first three months of his or her life.

When a baby is small, his gut is more porous, causing food proteins to leak into the bloodstream. The baby’s body will not know if these proteins are "friend or foe," and may attack them, causing an allergic reaction to the food. As a baby is older, the proteins stay in the gut and are broken down by enzymes.

[...]

It is best for both you and your baby to breastfeed, and can significantly reduce the chance of your baby having food allergies, eczema or asthma in his or her life. If anyone in your family suffers from allergies, food allergies, eczema or asthma, you should avoid eggs, peanuts, nuts, fish, wheat, citrus fruits and shellfish during your first three months of nursing. If you choose to bottle-feed, do not use cow’s milk formula, but rather a hydrolyzed formula in which the milk protein has been altered. Nutramigen, Alimentum and Good Start are examples of this type of formula.

http://www.babyandkidallergies.com/introducing_solids.php
Eczema and baby food – The link between diet and eczema
Some children with atopic eczema may have a food allergy that can worsen their symptoms. In fact, eczema in babies is often the first sign that a food allergy exists and it is usually babies with severe eczema for whom food allergy is the most likely culprit.

Although sensitivity to certain foods is a trigger for eczema in around 30% of children, it is only the main – or sole – trigger in around 10% of cases. This means that identifying the problem foods can c

eating gluten free is a remedy for Celiac Disease, which can present itself in a rash called Dermatitis Herpetiformis (DH)
if u have DH u ABSOLUTELY have Celiac, but u do not HAVE to have the rash to have Celiac. (http://www.csaceliacs.org/DH.php). that’s a link about the DH rash.

Anyways, Celiac is very common, 1 in 133 ppl, so there is a chance your baby has it. If she does, then the only treatment is the gluten free diet for life.

Feel free to ask me any other questions, but the site I refer u to should answer any questions u have on Celiac Disease and gluten free diet.

(btw, all formula should be gluten free unless it contains a cereal or filler madef rom wheat, rye and barley.)
and if u want to use gluten free cereal just make sure it is rice only.