Prevent Your Child from Developing Allergies
There are two types of food allergies, Immediate Type food allergy and Delayed food allergy.
Immediate Type food allergy (IgE – Immunoglobulin E) – The reaction is often severe, quick to happen after eating small quantities of the food and life-threatening. This is not common.
Delayed food allergy (Feed Intolerance) – The reaction builds up over 1 ~ 3 weeks, and this is quite common but header to detect and diagnose.
5 simple steps plan to monitor your child have allergies or not (from Doctor Lee):-
- Listen to your child
- If your child have a food allergy then he or she will always feel like ‘tired’, ‘not feel good’, ‘hurt’, ‘always sick’, ‘stomach ache’, ‘can’t sleep’, ‘bloated’.
- Get your child tested
- If already brought your child to the doctor and no obvious cause can be found, consider the possibility of food allergies among other caused.
- Observe your child
- Monitor his or her reaction to foods you introduce to or omit from his or her diet, and if any reaction, then avoid the food for several weeks.
- Rotate or avoid offending foods in his diet
- This strategy will help your child feel better and healthier.
- Avoid overprotection
- Exposure to dirt and disease allows the body to learn to distinguish between invasions by parasites and bacteria and to produce antibodies when needed.
What we can do..
- Introduce any new food gradually and do it one at a time. Before you introduce mixed foods that could cause an allergic reaction, introduce each new food on its own and don’t mix foods.
- Give your child cooked or homogenized food. Food in general are less likely to cause an allergic reaction after they are cooked.
What we better don’t..
- Take peanuts during pregnancy and while nursing, especially if there is a family history of allergies.
- Introduce cow’s milk before the child’s first birthday, or eggs before the second birthday. Don’t give nuts and seafood before the third birthday.
You can refer to this article - Why Do We Get Allergies?
Child Allergic! Parent Panic!
