>
> >I'm STRONGLY convinced that dairy exposure via supplemental bottles and/or
> >exposure through a nursing mom's diet makes the allergy more severe.
>
> While this may be true, it can happen without exposure. It happened to
> Josh. So if it can happen without exposure, no exposure is not a guarantee
> of less severity.

There was at least one study that showed, counterintuitively, that
having a few bottles of milk-based formula in the early days
ended up correlating with *lower* incidence of milk allergy.
I found this on MEDLINE once -- don't know if I could relocate it now.

Anecdotally, for our sample size of 2 kids, this turned out to be
true.  Kid #1 got a few ounces of milk formula before we were able to
get breastfeeding established, and has no milk allergy.  Kid #2 got
nothting but breast for 6 months, but developed a milk allergy.
(Both kids were exposed during pregnancy and the early days of
nursing.  With #2 I stopped exposing him through nursing as soon as
he started exhibiting allergic symptoms.)  Of course it could just
be that kid #1 got his daddy's no allergy genes, and kid #2 got his
mommy's allergy genes.

--Robyn