Photo Credit: EuroMagic via Compfight cc

A new journal article published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, discusses new guidelines for introducing allergenic foods. The allergenic foods include cow’s milk, egg, soy, wheat, peanut, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish. Here are the highlights from the article.

• Moms should not avoid allergenic foods during pregnancy or lactation for primary prevention.
• Breastfeed exclusively for 4-6 months.
• Do not introduce an allergenic food as the first solid food. Begin with basically anything else:  meat, cereal, vegetables, or fruit. Once you have successfully introduced a few of these foods, then you can introduce an allergenic food.
• Introduce allergenic foods at home instead of at day care or restaurant.
• Give a small amount of the allergenic food. If there is no apparent reaction, continue to offer the food to your child gradually increasing the amount.
• Offer one new food every 3-5 days to ensure that there is no reaction.
• There are the two exceptions: cow’s milk and peanuts.
• Do not provide cow’s milk to infants under one. This is not due to allergies, but because it can lead to kidney complications and low iron.
• The other exception is peanuts. Nuts are choking hazards and should not be offered before age 1, but continue to be a choking hazard until age 4. Nut butters are also considered choking hazards if you give chunks of nut butter. Thinly spread nut butters are okay to be given with the same guidelines as the other allergenic foods.
• If an older child has a nut allergy, see an allergist before offering peanut butter to your younger child since he is at an increased risk.
• Previous guidelines have recommended that allergenic foods be delayed, but studies have shown that it actually increases the risk of becoming allergic to these foods.

With food allergies becoming more and more of a concern, I hope that this helps clear up some confusion. If not, make sure you discuss it with your pediatrician. Ask them if they have read the latest guidelines themselves. If you want you can print out the article for them, just in case they have been to busy to get a chance to read it. 🙂

My family has been blessed to not have any food allergies, but I have seen lots of infants and children who have not been as fortunate. Hopefully following these new guidelines will help reduce the amount of food allergies.