Milk Proteins, Colic, and The Joy of Soy

When Mowgli was a month or so old, he began to have screaming fits every evening until just about five minutes shy of the "Okay, we're calling the emergency room" point. Sometimes these fits were combined with cold, clammy skin and shivers, and we felt like terrible parents for letting him get a chill.

I called the pediatrician, of course, and the nurse told me colic was perfectly normal. We should tough it out. It would go away and he'd turn loveable again. I read books. Most of them said the same thing.

Then I happened to have an unusual day in my life and didn't have milk, or cheese, or anything of that sort. Mind you, this is a rare thing. I am a cheese fiend. Mowgli spent an evening cooing, nursing, and going to bed early. Aha, I thought. Sure enough, dairy led to screams and chills the next time I had some.

With the exception of one slip, that's the last time I had some. Now I'm reading labels ardently and skipping a lot of foods one might not expect to contain whey, casein, or other such extracts. Soymilk, however, seems to be fine, as is soy-based yogurt. Thank heavens! Otherwise I'd starve, and then so would my breast-fed little boy. Now, though, no more chills, no more screams, and no more of that mysterious emerald-green grass-clipping-looking stuff in the diaper either. (TMI?)

Since then, I finally hit a book that said something like "Actually this is common." There are medical studies out. Apparently more babies than anyone used to think are sensitive to milk proteins, and getting rid of those might just solve the colic problem for other people, too. Besides, soybeans are supposed to be good for women. I can't vouch for any objective facts about myself to go with that, but without the dairy, I do feel better in some diffuse and puzzling way. Maybe it's just a sense of lowered guilt. It's difficult being a cow; soybeans just hang out in the sunshine, making really wonderful shade for a kid willing to lie between the rows, until they get harvested.