Beechnut Oatmeal has wheat?!

Maybe someone can enlighten me on why Beechnut has wheat in their infant oatmeal cereal. DD Lucy has come up with a terrible diaper rash and gas, so I was doing some investigating online about food allergies (my other has a milk/soy intolerance). I came across a post that hinted that infant oatmeal can have wheat so I checked, and sure enough, it does!

Anyone else have a similar problem? Now I don't know if DD is having problems with the oatmeal or the wheat. Regardless, I'm not giving her anymore. Poor baby. I myself am allergic to nuts and peanuts so I have a feeling we are in for a ride when it comes to allergies.

What other symptoms should I look for? This is so scary.

 

I heard this too. I heard that some manufacturers use the same plant for processing oatmeal that they do for processing wheat products. How did you verify it for your brand? We've used the Gerber or Earth's Best brands with our babies since they were 4 weeks old (for reflux) and I only heard about it recently. I looked on the box and it doesn't mention anything about wheat, and I thought it had to.

FWIW, oatmeal really loosens up our babies.

Good luck. Sorry to hear about your allergy scare!

 

Hi Sara. Oat flour is listed as the only ingredient. But then it says "contains wheat" in bold directly under that. I looked up the gerber ingredients on the Walgreens website and it also contains oat flour, but says nothing about wheat.

Does anyone know if oat flour always contains wheat? I'm so confused! I think I'll most likely give her a break from all of it and try the Gerber kind in a week or 2. I'll also be sure to ask the pedi on Friday when we go.

How frustrating!

 

If you're concerned about food allergies, you might want to wait longer on solids altogether. The longer you wait (even on "safe" things like rice cereal), the smaller the chance of developing allergies. Some pedis recommend waiting until 9 months to start any solids if there are a lot of food allergies in the family. Your babies only need breastmilk/formula right now anyway, so they won't be missing out on anything if you hold off for a while.

Here's more info if you're interested.

 

You can make your own oatmeal baby food by throwing some rolled oats in the food processor and pulsing them until they turn into powder then cooking them as needed with a 4 to 1 ratio of water to oats in the microwave in 30 second intervals.

But like fushiagroan said, waiting does reduce the risk of getting allergies.

 

As far as I know, Oat flour does not contain wheat but does contain gluten. My girls are allergic to wheat, dairy and eggs along with some fruits and vegetables. If you eliminate the wheat and their is still problems, then it could be a gluten intolerance and then oats, wheat, and barley need to be eliminated too. Rice is perfectly fine. We had severe reactions to dairy and once it was eliminated I really didn't see any symptoms other than a raw bottom that would not heal but that depended on the fruits and vegetables they ate. I finally asked for them to have a blood test by my allergist to determine what fruits and vegetables to avoid. That is when we found out about the wheat and eggs. They had been eating those every day. Once I eliminated all of them, they quit clinging to me, stopped whining and their stools hardened. I thought that was just their personality and so it was amazing to have sweet little girls that no longer clinged and whined.

 

Oatmeal gave my babies TERRIBLE gas, and diarrhea, which caused a rash.

 

QUOTE(Annie @ Dec 2 2007, 10:26 PM) [snapback]518050[/snapback]
As far as I know, Oat flour does not contain wheat but does contain gluten. My girls are allergic to wheat, dairy and eggs along with some fruits and vegetables. If you eliminate the wheat and their is still problems, then it could be a gluten intolerance and then oats, wheat, and barley need to be eliminated too. Rice is perfectly fine. We had severe reactions to dairy and once it was eliminated I really didn't see any symptoms other than a raw bottom that would not heal but that depended on the fruits and vegetables they ate. I finally asked for them to have a blood test by my allergist to determine what fruits and vegetables to avoid. That is when we found out about the wheat and eggs. They had been eating those every day. Once I eliminated all of them, they quit clinging to me, stopped whining and their stools hardened. I thought that was just their personality and so it was amazing to have sweet little girls that no longer clinged and whined.


I was thinking the same thing. My niece has Celiac disease (which was diagnosed when she was about 18 months) which means she can't have anything with gluten in it. You would be best to stick with rice for a little bit and maybe try making your own oatmeal cereal like Jenny suggested.

 

Anything that has oats in it can contain wheat. You have to be very careful here!

 

My DH, BIL and FIL have celiac (gluten intolerance). For a long time Oatmeal, Oats were on the do not eat list. They have now found that they can eat Oats. The biggest problem with it, is the cross contamiantion. The same machine that the wheat products are processed on they also process the oats. That said, with all of my kids we did not eat wheat products for the 1st year. We disocvered Earths Best Brown Rice cereal, and they loved it. Be sure and check the labels of the different foods, a lot of the mixed meals (stage 2 & 3) have wheat in them. Also, a few of the fruit desserts have wheat in them. PM me if you have anyother questions or need help finding certain foods. Somewhere around here I have a recipe for gluten free teething biscuts.

HTH