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Food Allergies in Babies and Toddlers

Signs, Symptoms, Prevention and Management

By Shannon McKelden

Although Sue Nading of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, suspected her son had food allergies, nothing had been proven, and she wasn't really concerned. "[Then] I got a call at work one day," Nading says. "The sitter had fed him eggs for breakfast and she thought he was having an allergic reaction – again. She was very insistent, saying that his face was blotchy and he was crying a lot. I know I rolled my eyes and thought 'Fine!'"

Nading returned home to find a serious situation. "I felt bad that I did not take the sitter seriously, but I really thought it was a false alarm as it had been so many times before," she says. Her son was admitted to the hospital for anaphylactic shock. "I have become the poster mom for informing schools on food allergies as there are a lot of misinformed people (even as I was) about the seriousness of food allergies," she says.

Keep in mind that consumption of a food isn't always necessary to cause reaction, especially with highly toxic foods like peanuts or seafood. "My son had an anaphylactic reaction to touching (not ingesting) peanut butter when he was 13 months old," says Miriam Kamin, a mom from Athens, Ga.

Kamin found her pediatrician at the time to be unhelpful, basically telling her, "Don't feed him peanut butter again." Fortunately friends whose kids had food allergies helped her. "They pushed me to ask for a consult with an allergist, which led to a lot more information," says Kamin, whose son turned out to be allergic to many different foods. "I found the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (www.foodallergy.org) really helpful, too."

One way to help decrease the chance of developing food allergies in infants is to introduce potentially allergic foods later.

According to Dr. Devang Dohi, director of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology, William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Mich., the American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends exclusive breastfeeding to all infants for at least the first 6 months if possible. "Generally, we recommend introducing cow's milk at 12 months of age; eggs and egg-containing foods at 24 months of age; peanuts, tree nuts and fish at 36 months of age," he says.

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• Talk about it!