Vegan mum's sacrifice - I ATE MEAT FOR MY BABY

Born with chronic allergies, things looked bleak for wee Clover, but now mother and daughter are both thriving

- Kasia Jillings

Vegan for eight years, Stephanie Campbell never imagined she’d eat meat again, but when her exclusively breastfed newborn developed debilitating allergies, she turned to an extreme diet of just lamb, leek and green beans.

For more than a year, Stephanie followed the strict regime three times a day. Even a few bites of something different caused severe and painful reactions, including internal bleeding, for baby Clover.

Stephanie remembers the first time Clover, then four months old, had blood in her nappy and was told by her GP to drive immediately to Dunedin Hospital, more than three hours from their Wanaka home.

There followed a nervous wait, with little Clover eventually being diagnosed with allergic colitis, a painful condition where a baby’s immune system overreacts to food proteins, leading to inflammation in the colon, bleeding in the bowel and blood in stools.

Stephanie followed doctors’ recommendations and cut out all allergenic foods that could be causing the condition, such as dairy, eggs, shellfish, gluten and nuts. As a vegan, Stephanie wasn’t eating many of these foods anyway, but she became vigilant about avoiding any trace of dairy and soy. When this made no difference, she temporarily stopped breastfeeding and tried prescription allergy formulas.

But the 32-year-old was devastated when the specialised formula made Clover’s symptoms even worse, so she started breastfeeding again.

“There was blood in every nappy. She couldn’t gain weight, no matter how much I fed her because she couldn’t absorb my breast milk,” recalls Stephanie.