Question by natalie: will giving a baby lactose free formula create lactose intolerance?
My friend gave me four cans of lactose free formula because her baby is no longer on it.i am due in one week and i was wondering if i should use it or not.i planned on formula feeding anyways but i was wondering, if i give her the lactose free formula, if she will develop a intolerance to dairy formula later on or dairy in general?
Best answer:
Answer by jlb
It won’t create an intolerance but it is harder for a baby to digest. Defiantly talk to you pediatrician about this before offering it to your baby.
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No, it won’t.
Don’t toss them yet though- you don’t need to take formula to the hospital, they will provide it for you if you aren’t trying to breastfeed(or even if you are, in some cases). You’ll know if your child has an intolerance to lactose right away. My son started throwing up 80% or more of every bottle he ate the first 2 days in the hospital. A little spit up is normal, but he couldn’t even keep it down. So he’s on soy formula now. He still had some reflux, but he’s outgrown that now at 9 months. We will start introducing dairy slowly over the next few months, then try cow’s milk at a year old. If he doesn’t take to it, we’ll wait another 3 months and try again. Kids will, 9 out of 10 times, outgrow any intolerances they are born with.
But if your child isn’t intolerant, then you can always keep the formula for a while, and even stretch out the regular formula(like 3 scoops of regular, 1 scoop of free, for an 8 oz bottle) when things are tight and you might not make it to the store on time. We ended up with a sample of regular, and used it to stretch out a few bottles of my son’s when we were running on empty and didn’t get to the store before it closed, he still sicked up some, but it’s a bit difference since he does have an intolerance.
But it can’t cause lactose intolerance, that’s a thing some babies are born with. More likely to occur when you have history of it in your family(my mom’s got no digestive abilities when it comes to lactose products) but as I said, they usually outgrow it