Kanokporn Laoruttanako-mut was feeling desperate. Her twomonthold son was unable to sleep for longer than 15 minutes and had been suffering from nonstop diarrhoea for five weeks. The doctors had prescribed various medications but even after hospitalisation, her son was showing no signs of improvement.

"Many paediatric doctors don't find the cause of the problem," says Dr Pipop Jirapinyo, head of Paediatrics at Siriraj Hospital, who has invented a formula made from chicken meat.

Children with an allergy to the proteins in cow's milk can present with a variety of symptoms, such skin rashes, diarrhoea and phlegm.

"Anything that goes on for five days should be considered," Pipop says. "Colic in babies may also be a sign."

Of the 800,000 babies born in Thailand every year, some 20,000 are allergic to cow's milk. Some are also allergic to breast milk thanks to cow's milk in their mothers' diets. And the number is rising every year, says Pipop. Some can be fed such alternatives as soymilk and costly imported amino acid based milk but sometimes these cannot be substituted.

"Old medical textbooks mention that chicken broth provides all necessary proteins for infants if milk cannot be taken," says Pipop.

His special formula is made from chicken breast strips, boiled and blended under a sterilised manufacturing process. The decadelong experiment has proved effective in lowering not just the cost but also the risk of allergies later in life.

Out of more than 100 babies given the formula, 70 per cent recovered from the allergy in one year with the remainder taking between two and five years. After being treated, these children will be able to eat all types of protein including cow's milk.

The children's milk is currently available only at Siriraj Hospital but is now being developed into powder on an industrial scale and should be available nationwide by the end of the year.

By Sirinya Wattanasukchai

Daily Xpress