Suggest Treatment For Lactose Intolerance In An Infant

Hello, Your infant 5 months old with suffering of lactose intolerant, it can be difficult to know whether your infant or child is having symptoms of lactose intolerance or whether he or she may have a milk allergy. Lactose intolerance is a digestive problem, while lactose intolerance can cause a great deal of discomfort, it will not produce a life threatening reaction such as anaphylaxis. Lactose is a sugar found in foods. The product that coneains lactose like milk, lactose, whey, curds, milk by products, dry milk solids, nonfat dry milk powder. These are ingredients on food labels and the nutrition facts to find possible sources of lactose in food products. Symptoms of lactose intolarance depend on the amount of lactose that s consumed. symptoms can occur within minutes to hours after drinking milk or eating dairy products and range from mild to severe based on the amount consumed and the amount tolerated. Symptoms such as watery diarrhea with gas, loose stools and gas, abdominal pain, cramping and bloating, nausea. It is very important to breast feeding your child it is very benefit for your baby health and its not greater risk of becoming lactose intolerant. The goal of management is to eliminate symptoms while maintaining calcium intake and vitamin D intake. in patients with secondary lactose malabsorption, successful treatment of the primary disorder can lead to restoration of lactase activity. However, lactose intolerance may persist for months after healing starts and lags behind the return or normal intestinal morphology. The treatment such as dietary lactose restriction, enzyme replacement (available lactase enzyme preparations are bacterial or yeast beta-galactosidases and are available as preparations that can be taken orally with lactose-containing food), Calcium and vitamin D intake. Patient should be advised that complete elimination of dietary lactose is not required and that restriction of their intake of lactose to two cup of milk(or its lactose equicvalent) daily, taken in divided doses with two meals, is often sufficient to treat symptoms of intolerance. You may use lactose reduced products or lactase supplements. Patients with inadequate dietary intake may require calcium supplementation. VitaminD levels should be monitored in patients who avoid dairy intake. Your doctor might suggest that you talk to a nutritionist to learn which foods have lactose. The nutritionist can also make sure that your child get enough calcium and vitamin D in his/ her diet. Hope I have answered your query. Let me know if I can assist you further. Best regards, Dr Heang Chan Raksmey, General and Family Physician