Regarding Kathryn P's comments about her allergist's advice, I wanted to ask
for a little more information/clarification.  With one extremely allergist
2-year old (wheat, eggs, dairy, soy, peanuts/nuts/seeds, etc.) and a baby
due in 2 weeks, I want to be as conservative as possible to avoid problems
from the past.

First, when your allergist says, 'avoid' these foods until 9 mos, 12 mos, etc.
is he/she referring to YOU keeping them out of YOUR diet as well since you
are nursing?  I am pretty sure that my son's first exposures were through my
milk (nursed thru 18 mos.) but outside of being advised to avoid anything that
seemed to make him gassy (I already did not drink milk due to my own allergy),
I was not told to avoid these other major food groups.  The ages he/she cites
for introducing solids (if that's what you mean when you say wheat at 9 mos,
nuts at 24 etc.), seem fairly standard practice to me and not really restrictive
at all.  My pediatrician is now telling me to exclusively breastfeed with NO
solids whatsoever through one year with this next one.  I know of one woman,
from La Leche L. who did this thru 17 months with her daughter happily but I am
not sure I can be sole source of food for this long.

The other question was regarding soy formula-- why would you introduce soy
formula now?  Soy is one of the top five allergens also, not to mention the
chemicals in formula.  As a substitute for breastmilk, should you decide to
stop nursing?

One last comment, regarding the doctor who never suggested eczema-food allergy
connection.  I have a neighbor also whose child broke out in facial, wrist
and ankle eczema within maybe 3 weeks of starting to feed him 'solids' (inher
case, a lot of soy because they are from Japan).  The doctor (like mine did,
through 15 months of torture) diagnosed "sensitive skin".  She stopped the
soy, knowing that in Japan it's very common allergen and her son cleared up
completely. I have found zero reliable advice from either pediatricians, aller-
gists (even board-certified in pediatric allergy) or from nutritional specialists.  They all look at one tiny piece of the pie and know nothing about the
overall picture--very frustrating.

I will be happily taking advice for what to look out for with my soon-to-be
newborn daughter or any food avoidance practices new nursing mothers have tried.
I really don't want to expose her to any more than I have to.

Susan M.