OK, so you’ve survived the horrors of unending sickness and nausea; you’ve accepted that you’re just not going to “bloom” as well-meaning people keep telling you you will, because there isn’t any time left for blooming: you’re now entering the “I’m understudying a whale” phase and it’s time to think about how you’re going to feed your baby.

We spent ages (far, far too long!) trying to establish what the chances were that our baby had inherited an allergy to milk protein. At the time, nobody we asked (and we asked a LOT of people) could tell us. The general response was: “Why are you worrying about this now? Just wait and see.” We didn’t want to do that, as we knew what exposure to milk protein could do if you were allergic to it. We also knew that the milk allergy had already come down one generation in the family. When we eventually got as far a paediatrician who worked on a neonatal ward, I had already gone dairy-free, substituting with soya and rice milk and taking calcium tablets as supplements. He confirmed that this was the best course we could have taken and his only concern was that I had kept up my calcium intake.  On hearing that I had been taking calcium throughout the pregnancy, he was satisfied that everything should be fine. He maintained that what is usually inherited is a tendency to be allergic rather than a specific allergy. However, given the family history, we would be well advised to keep our baby dairy-free until at least 6 months.

I intended breastfeeding the baby, but we felt that we should have an emergency back-up just in case. In the end, we hunted down a partially hydrolysed formula milk and bought a tin to take with us at the birth just in case things went very wrong and the baby had to be fed. The last thing we wanted, was for the baby to be fed with an ordinary milk-based formula if he/she turned out to be allergic to it. We opted for Neocate which was then being used in neonatal wards. That was back in 2002, so things will have moved on by now, I expect. If you need to investigate this, based on our experience, I would contact the neonatal ward of your maternity hospital and ask which hydrolysed/partially hydrolysed formula they use. Don’t be surprised if other parts of your local health team do not know the answers to your questions. You can get this stuff on prescription, if you can persuade your GP that you’re not being over-dramatic, just sensible. You will want to get it on prescription if you end up having to use it as it’s horribly expensive!

Once you have sorted the back-up tin of milk, all you can do is wait until the baby actually arrives.

The challenges of feeding a dairy-free baby can seem overwhelming. We felt completely at sea trying to sort out what we were supposed to do about formula milk, weaning foods and even what you should eat/not eat as a breastfeeding mother, given the transmission of milk protein into breast milk.

Looking after yourself

In the first few months of your pregnancy, your priority when it comes to food tends to be what stays down (at least it was for me!). If you are completely dairy-free, you must try to keep up your calcium intake as it is your bones and teeth that will suffer if your calcium levels fall even before those of the foetus. Make sure that you use soya/rice milks that are fortified with calcium. This isn’t anywhere near as much of a problem these days as it used to be, since most milks are routinely fortified now, but do check that your usual one is. If it isn’t, it’s probably worth considering changing and not just because you’re pregnant. Low calcium levels in youth and middle age can seriously affect your bones and osteoporosis is not something you want to line up for later years.

If you’re dairy-free because you’re lactose intolerant, you could try Lactofree milk, cheese and yoghurt. Two of my lot fall into this category and use Lactofree all the time. It is real milk without the lactose, so you get the calcium dose you would from normal milk without the agony-inducing lactose. It works for us, as does the cheese (although the cheese is decidedly rubbery in texture). The yoghurt is also fine. Not special, but perfectly edible and frankly rather better than some (though not all) of the non-dairy substitutes out there. However, the cream cheese we’ve had problems with. I know of at least two other families as well who have had lactose exposure symptoms after eating it, so we now avoid it. The ice cream, however, is delicious!

If you’re dairy-free because you’re allergic to casein (milk protein), then obviously Lactofree is no use to you. However, this isn’t really a problem on the calcium front as most non-dairy milk substitutes (as the industry so appetisingly calls them) have higher levels of added calcium than real milk.

For some women, the first few months of a pregnancy can be very hard. What is known to the world as “morning sickness” can take over your life completely, making you either feel sick or actually vomit at any (or indeed every) time of the day and night. If this is you, don’t get too hung up on the precise content of what you can eat. You reach a point when some nutrition is better than none! It shouldn’t last for ever – although it will feel like it at the time. For most women, after 20 weeks, things improve. If you are worried, speak to your midwife. She will be able to tell whether you are in need of medical help, or whether you are coping (albeit only just!).

If you are considering taking calcium tablets, then it is probably worth finding a brand which includes vitamin D. Not only is calcium absorption affected by vitamin D levels, the health department advice now is for all pregnant women to take vitamin D to stave off the risk of rickets in your baby. In this country we rarely get enough exposure to sunlight to make as much vitamin D as we need, so it is worth considering for all of us but it’s particularly important if your skin is dark. Talk to your midwife about what’s right for you.