Preventing Allergies
Not all children will develop allergies. So when you hear some women saying that they ate nuts all throughout their pregnancy and their child is not allergic to nuts (or anything for that matter), or conversely that they didn’t touch nuts at all, they could have just been the lucky ones whose children were not predisposed to food allergies in the first place.
Studies have shown that around 30% of children with eczema develop a food allergy and this is consistent with what doctors had told us when my children were diagnosed with their allergies.
I have heard of children developing allergies where their parents do not have any allergic conditions, however eczema (and hay fever) genes do increase the chances.
This was the case with my children but I knew so little about allergies when my eldest was born; I just didn’t think my children would get them.
The patterns I noticed were that they tended to develop food allergies to things I had in excess while breastfeeding (that they themselves were not eating yet or not eating much of), and also once they had had the food to eat themselves, any slight sensitivity turned into a full blown allergy if there was a break in them consuming an allergenic food over a month or longer (such as peanut which one of my children tolerated without any problems from 10 months old, went off it for about a month at 13 months old, and then when he had it again at 14 months old had a severe reaction).
At the time of writing, I am pregnant with our third baby and have been told to introduce the allergenic solid food early (between 4-6 months) by our allergy specialist, and when I do introduce cow’s milk formula, to keep giving it regularly (presumably every day). This reinforces my scepticism about “breastfeeding is best” because I think when your children are predisposed to allergies, formula is not a bad thing to introduce early (my eldest had formula top ups while I worked on increasing my milk supply after his tongue tie resulted in a drop in supply - he is not allergic to milk now though at the time he did break out in severe eczema all over his body which we treated topically; whereas my second child was completely breastfed - primarily because we went to Vietnam for a wedding when he was 4 months old and I was worried he would get sick from the water there if I had to mix his formula - he is allergic to dairy).
Anyway, we will see how we go once this baby is born; just hoping and praying for a healthy baby!
A couple of mothers I have spoken to have said that after their first allergic child, they took probiotics when pregnant with the next child and then subsequent children did not have food allergies. Worth giving it a try!
One of the mums I met at a food challenge swore that her son’s eczema improved after her son taking Chinese herbal medicine from a herbalist in Cabramatta. I haven’t tried this yet but it is something I would be open to.
So as a summary, what I reckon you should do to try to prevent allergies given my experience and the advice from my allergy specialist and other mums is:
1. Take probiotics and fish oil supplements while pregnant.
2. Eat a balanced diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding; don’t eat any of the top allergen foods in excess (nuts, dairy, wheat, eggs, fish, shellfish, soy, sesame). I think if eaten as part of a balanced diet, it should be ok (you obviously still need to keep those calcium levels up!)
3. Introduce allergenic solids in the 4-6 month window after bub is born.
4. Once allergenic foods have been introduced, give these to them on a regular basis - once a week at a minimum. For things like nuts, as these can be a choking hazard, you can try nut butters or nut pastes when bub is young. We pretty much just did peanut butter for our second child who was a baby when we started, but introducing any more than that was tricky given his older brother’s allergies and the fact that young children like to, for example, put all their toys including toys they share with their siblings, in or near their mouth, and they also like to hug you with their mouths open. See “Managing allergies at home” on how we managed giving allergens to our children when their siblings were allergic.
My caveat/disclaimer is that obviously these are my thoughts and opinions only, so what works for some may not work for others!
ASCIA also have some great info on allergy prevention here, and very recently the National Allergy Strategy came out with “Nip allergies in the bub” advice on preventing allergies in babies.