Colic and food allergy in the breastfed infant: is it possible for an exclusively breastfed infant to suffer from food allergy?

Ms. Green, the mother of a 2-week-old infant, calls the lactation consultant with concerns that “my baby doesn’t like my milk.” Baby Patric was born at 41 weeks gestation, the product of a spontaneous vaginal delivery, weighing 3.8 kg at birth. At 2 weeks of age, Patric is well above birth weight, weighing 4.4 kg. Patric has been exclusively breastfed since birth, with feedings going well. Ms. Green has a 3-year-old daughter who was breastfed for 4 months. Ms. Green then decided to switch her daughter to soy formula because of unending colic, which Ms. Green reports as “disappearing overnight” once she stopped breastfeeding. Because of her daughter’s past history, Ms. Green is worried that “there is something wrong with my milk” as this baby is also very colicky. Ms. Green states that for the past few days, Patric has been showing increasingly more signs of colic, with his fussiness and apparent discomfort getting worse. “About the only time he isn’t crying is when he’s asleep or nursing,” she states. She reports Patric’s stools as very runny, and they have started to appear “mucus-like” as well. Ms. Green does not think she could bear to go through 4 months of colic like she did with her daughter, and yet she very much wants her son to be breastfed. “What’s wrong with my milk?” Ms. Green asks desperately. Response