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BR Parents Exceptional Lives: A Smile Sweeter Than Any Cupcake

Like most babies, when Jack Beach turned one, his parents, Emily and David, switched him to whole milk and started adding fruits and veggies to his diet. Unlike most babies, however, Jack reacted badly and began having 7-10 icky diapers per day. With Jack being the couple’s fourth child, Emily knew right away that something wasn’t right.

At first, Jack’s pediatrician suspected that he had a milk allergy, but those tests came back negative. Then, the family took Jack to see a pediatric gastroenterologist. Since Jack’s nine-year-old brother, Howard, had salmonella as a baby, the Beach family returned to Dr. J. Brannon Alberty for Jack’s care. Dr. Alberty suspected that Jack had fructose malabsorption or sucrose deficiency. The easiest way to test this was to give Jack straight fructose and observe him.

“Fructose wasn’t easy to find, but I got it and put it in his bottles,” Emily says. “Almost immediately, after two or three bottles, he began having diarrhea.” At only 14 months old, Dr. Alberty diagnosed Jack with fructose malabsorption.

Read the rest on the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine website.