Diet the key to helping babies' colic woes: study - theage.com.au

March 27 2003
By Lucy Beaumont

"...Breastfeeding mothers can reduce their babies' colic by adopting a low-allergy diet, a Melbourne study has found.

The study of 90 babies by the Royal Children's Hospital confirms earlier findings that many babies younger than six weeks have an intolerance to allergenic proteins ingested by the mother and excreted in the breast milk.

The director of the department of allergy, David Hill, said 70 per cent of the babies with mothers on the low-allergy diet cried at least 25 per cent less within a week.

"Our data suggests that the problem is initially one of immunological immaturity," Dr Hill said. "What the mother eats comes out in her breast milk."..."