New peanut allergy prevention guidelines for infants

[Cecropia]

Anyone else been looking at this?

Addendum guidelines for the prevention of peanut allergy in the United States: Report of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases–sponsored expert panel

The very rough summary is that peanut-containing foods should be introduced to babies as young as 4 months, with earlier introduction to babies who show signs of other allergies.

 

My family does not have a history of peanut/tree nut allergies, but dh has allergies to other foods as well as animals with fur and feathers, I have reactions to some detergents, and three of our children have had mild eczema since they were babies.  This panel considers eczema in infancy as a risk factor for peanut allergy.

 

Given the new recommendations to introduce peanut-containing foods early as a prevention strategy, I wonder if my daily peanut butter (and other nuts) consumption has helped to prevent peanut allergy in my children (mainly exposure through breast milk).  I loooove nuts and they make up a significant part of my diet.  I don't give nut-containing foods directly to my infants or toddlers, but I know that there must be constant exposure to traces being spread around by those of us who are often eating or cooking with nuts.

 

I once had a peanut-allergic acquaintance who collapsed and ended up in a coma for two weeks just from smelling peanut proteins in her son's hair as he was sitting in her lap (he had been playing in a gymnasium where peanut butter was being served from a large tub).  All of her lactating connections (including me) were asked to pump milk for her young baby during that time.  Thankfully she had a complete recovery and she managed to fully relactate.  I'll never forget that...

[mommyoffive]

I had read that.  I am a nut lover and eat so much nuts while pg.  None of my kids are are allergic. I also bf all of them while eating lots of nuts.   Since reading that I do start feeding peanut butter to my babies young too.  

 

The eczema and peanut allergy is interesting. 

[Carrie12345]

I'm very skeptical of "prevention" methods.  I've always been a nut lover.  My oldest reacted before he was a year old.  (He also had eczema and reacted to blueberries.  He outgrew all three somewhere between age 2 and 3.)  We delayed nuts/nut products with #2 to age 1 and #3 to age 2, though it definitely was in the house.  I couldn't tell you how old #4 or #5 were, though neither ate solids before 1.  The oldest is still the only one who ever reacted.

 

After reading about the eczema/peanut connection after #1, I don't know that I could have brought myself to test peanuts on my 4 or 6 month olds if they showed risk factors!  That sounds terrifying to me!

 

 

[J-rap]

I remember hearing that if a mother eats a lot of peanuts while pregnant and nursing, her baby will have a higher chance of asthma.  And I did eat a lot of peanuts and several of my kids have asthma, one of them quite severe early on.  (Although it has improved.)  So I used to wonder if my eating so many peanuts was part of what brought it on!  My same child who had the worst asthma also has lots of food allergies.  

 

However, none of them is allergic to peanuts.  We all seem to crave them!

 

 

[Serenade]

Anyone else been looking at this?

Addendum guidelines for the prevention of peanut allergy in the United States: Report of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases–sponsored expert panel

The very rough summary is that peanut-containing foods should be introduced to babies as young as 4 months, with earlier introduction to babies who show signs of other allergies.

My sister followed this new protocol with her infant daughter -- she got a tiny smear of peanut butter at around 4 or 5 months, well before she tried other solids. I'm glad she did. I wish this is how they did things when I had babies.

 

 

My family does not have a history of peanut/tree nut allergies, but dh has allergies to other foods as well as animals with fur and feathers, I have reactions to some detergents, and three of our children have had mild eczema since they were babies.  This panel considers eczema in infancy as a risk factor for peanut allergy.

My younger son had severe eczema when he was a baby -- the oozy, infected kind that took a couple of years to get under control. We also figured out that he had a dairy allergy when he was around 7 months old, although I was told by several docs that he couldn't because he was breast fed. At any rate, because of this, we didn't introduce nuts until the age of 3, per guidelines. My DS was fine with peanuts, but he is allergic to tree nuts. I, too, wonder if he's OK with peanuts because I ate peanuts while I was nursing. I did eat other nuts as well, but not so many. Of course, there were times when I wondered if eating nuts while nursing caused the allergy. Sigh. That was going around for a while, too. At any rate, in our case, what's done is done, but I'm glad my sis has tried the peanut butter and all is well with her daughter. I wonder if she should try something like almond butter, too.

[bluemongoose]

Well I have a DS who has a life threatening allergy to peanuts. I'm a vegetarian (allergic to meat) who craved peanut butter while pregnant and nursing and ate a ton of it. My DS ate peanut butter (on accident...Grabbed a sandwich) at 8 months and had his first severe reaction. So I don't think his early exposure helped him at all. Also, my DH carries the two genes they have linked to peanut allergies, but doesn't have them himself.

[Lady Marmalade]

This is the new advice my DB and SIL are following with their family.   My 6 and 4 year old niece and nephew were just upgraded to a severe peanut allergy this last year.  (They can have contact, but they cannot ingest.) When it was just my nephew, the recommendation for my niece was to avoid peanuts completely with her, then test one she was old enough to see if she was allergic.

 

Now with new little brother, it's the complete opposite.  He is 8 months old and is eating peanut butter four days a week.  Mom is also eating peanut butter consciously so that it's in her milk.   She said that the current protocol is that he will have to eat PB 3 or 4 days a week pretty much for forever and he should be able to avoid the allergy.  They did test him at six months (?) and he tested negative.

 

She did say it's kind of a pain because she has to really be mindful as to when the PB comes out.  They had pretty much eliminated it from the household, favoring sun butter instead. 

 

SIL also mentioned that there was likely some connection between the peanut allergies and eczema- which both older kids deal with.  I will have to go read the article! 

[AFwife Claire]

Meh, I don't know.  I have 10 children, and I've eaten peanut butter while pregnant and nursing with all of them because I love it.  My 3rd child, a boy, had severe eczema (the oozy kind, as a previous poster said!) that started when he was about 3 months.  I was solely nursing him at that point.  When he was 5 months, he chewed on a fork I had been eating coffee cake with, and he broke out with huge hives all over his face (the cake had walnuts and milk in it).  When he was tested at 7 months, he was severely allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, and eggs--everything they tested for except soy.  He grew out of eggs by age 3 and *finally* grew out of dairy at age 9 (!!), but all the nut allergies remain, and he's had several anaphalactic reactions over the past 15 years.  He also had asthma.

 

None of my other children have any nut allergies.  One had a milk allergy she outgrew at age 2.  None of the others have asthma.  There is no way that simply giving him a spoonful of peanut butter as an infant would have helped!  And he was definitely exposed to tons of peanut butter in my breast milk.  So this might make people feel better, and maybe it will help really obsessive new moms feel better about peanut butter, but there will still be kids who have that allergy.  If I had another baby with all the skin problems that Caleb had, I would definitely not try any nuts.  It seems like the skin issues might be a bigger indicator of future allergies than anything else?  

 

I tell Caleb that he just won the genetic allergy jackpot.  He does have perfect vision and teeth, lol.  His braces-and-glasses-wearing siblings are jealous about that!

 

ETA:  He was a natural vaginal birth--I didn't have any c-sections or any preterm babies, or really any problems at all with any of my 10 births.

Edited January 6, 2017 by AFwife Claire

[Janeway]

Anyone else been looking at this?

Addendum guidelines for the prevention of peanut allergy in the United States: Report of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases–sponsored expert panel

The very rough summary is that peanut-containing foods should be introduced to babies as young as 4 months, with earlier introduction to babies who show signs of other allergies.

 

My family does not have a history of peanut/tree nut allergies, but dh has allergies to other foods as well as animals with fur and feathers, I have reactions to some detergents, and three of our children have had mild eczema since they were babies.  This panel considers eczema in infancy as a risk factor for peanut allergy.

 

Given the new recommendations to introduce peanut-containing foods early as a prevention strategy, I wonder if my daily peanut butter (and other nuts) consumption has helped to prevent peanut allergy in my children (mainly exposure through breast milk).  I loooove nuts and they make up a significant part of my diet.  I don't give nut-containing foods directly to my infants or toddlers, but I know that there must be constant exposure to traces being spread around by those of us who are often eating or cooking with nuts.

 

I once had a peanut-allergic acquaintance who collapsed and ended up in a coma for two weeks just from smelling peanut proteins in her son's hair as he was sitting in her lap (he had been playing in a gymnasium where peanut butter was being served from a large tub).  All of her lactating connections (including me) were asked to pump milk for her young baby during that time.  Thankfully she had a complete recovery and she managed to fully relactate.  I'll never forget that...

 

Long ago, I read on how in societies where a certain food is not served to children, people grow "allergic" or otherwise intolerant to the foods. So a child who grew up never drinking milk or having milk products had a much higher chance of becoming allergic. I do not recall the exacts of the article as it was long ago, but it was one about kids in orphanages who had very limited diets.

[Ali in OR]

While I didn't read the article in the OP, I do remember reading about the Israeli study a few years ago. There is a snack in Israel that is a peanut butter puff that many babies eat, and in the study they noticed a much lower incidence of peanut allergy in their population compared with I think children of similar (Jewish) heritage in other countries where early peanuts were avoided. But there were still cases of peanut allergy--just a much lower percentage. I think the goal is that looking at a whole population we won't see as many kids with peanut allergies if there is early exposure, but of course it's not going to work for everyone.

[MotherGoose]

We have no allergies too much towards anything in the family other than occasional seasonal allergies. I'm very thankful! I ate nuts while pregnant, although I kept pb away from my olders. With youngest, he stole something containing pb from sisters quite young. In my case, I think it's good genes re allergies. I do wonder about exposure to dirt and animals though, in general. We had dogs sleeping in the bed with us and licking babies through all pregnancies and infancies. Also I garden a lot and am fairly lax about housecleaning and hand sanitizer unless we've been handling shopping carts or raw meat. Babies definitely eat dirt and who knows what here. Both dh and myself come from farming families and were outdoors in dirt as kids.

 

Eta:  None of my kids were breastfed, either.  

 

Also, I wonder if this increase in allergies is actually the fault of our good medical care.  I read somewhere that the average size of women's pelvises has decreased because women who would have otherwise died in childbirth due to small pelvises now live, along with their infants, allowing the genes for small pelvises to pass on.  There's no question that my oldest and I would've died in childbirth or before as I developed preeclampsia at 32 weeks with very high BP, and she was footling breech, so she was delivered by c section at 35 weeks.  But here I am, with three children, passing along the genes for preeclampsia.  Certainly many people who have severe allergies would not live to have babies or to pass along genes without epi pens or medical care.  Maybe that's what it's all about.  

Edited January 5, 2017 by MotherGoose

[SparklyUnicorn]

Interesting.  Although when my kids were little I was not even aware of this.  I didn't go out of my way to not feed them stuff with nuts, but then it really never came up either that I can recall. 

 

 

[Loowit]

It seems like the guidelines change all the time and each parent does their best for their children.  When I was pregnant and had young children the advice was to wait until they were toddlers to introduce peanuts.  I did that for all of them and my older two have no food allergies, my youngest had severe food allergies including to peanut and tree nuts.  I ate a lot of peanut butter when pregnant with him because I craved it.  So for years I felt guilty when the advice was that you should eat it in pregnancy because it can cause allergies.  Then a few years later studies started to come out with opposite advice, that you should introduce it young to prevent allergies.  Honestly, I don't think either way would have made any difference to my DS, he tested allergic when he was only 6 months old.  He also has asthma and eczema.  He is just prone to allergies.  He has been one of the fortunate ones that outgrew his peanut allergy, but he still hates peaunts and gags if he tries to eat them so I don't make him eat them.

 

Honestly I really hate when articles like this come out, but I know it is a personal thing for me.  I get tired to "helpful" people telling me that I am parenting all wrong and that I caused my child's allergies by doing/not doing what the article recommends.  I remember vividly when my DS was diagnosed with an almond allergy two years ago.  My MIL told me that I should have been introducing him to almonds more often.  He had just had a severe reaction with an epipen/ER visit and then extensive allergy testing.  That sort of comment was neither helpful nor wanted.  But I hear it all the time, especially when these new studies come out.

[Spryte]

I would follow the new recs in a heartbeat.

 

I have no idea if it would have helped DS. He had food allergies basically from birth. We spent soooo much time at doc's offices and GI specialists, and on and on. He was never normal in that department. His birthmother ate everything, especially a lot of his allergens, while pregnant. He had bad eczema from the start. And, of course, we're way past peanut here. So many allergies. For most of his life, I used sesame oil on my skin. He became anaphylactic to that at 3. I switched to coconut oil, and then he became anaphylactic to that. He loved banana and now he's anaphylactic to that, too. I don't know what would have helped.

[Spryte]

Loowit, I know how you feel. The blame placed on us, when we are doing the best we can to parent well - it hurts.

 

Have you seen the studies about c-sections and allergies? That's interesting, too. Not sure if your allergic kiddo was a c-section, but interesting if so. And there's a link to abx, too. And genes. And on and on. It's not all on what we did or didn't feed our kids because we were following the guidelines (which I did, religiously, grrrrrr).

[Loowit]

Loowit, I know how you feel. The blame placed on us, when we are doing the best we can to parent well - it hurts.

 

Have you seen the studies about c-sections and allergies? That's interesting, too. Not sure if your allergic kiddo was a c-section, but interesting if so. And there's a link to abx, too. And genes. And on and on. It's not all on what we did or didn't feed our kids because we were following the guidelines (which I did, religiously, grrrrrr).

 

He was an emergency c-section baby that ended up in the NICU for a week.  He was on a lot of medications starting at a very young age.  I think he just got a bad start on life mixed with some bad genes.  My other two were also c-sections, but healthy at birth for the most part.  One has antibiotic allergies and the other has no allergies to speak of but has asthma.

[jeremmy]

I am not a peanut fan, so I never ate peanuts with my first 2. I found a specific peanut recipe I liked and craved and ate it all through my pregnancy with my 3rd and while I was nursing her. She came into contact with a peanut butter lid containing no peanut butter at 6mo and got what looked like 3rd degree burns all over her face. Tested her and she has a severe allergy. We have to carry epi pens at all times. The other kids have no allergy. Didn't work for us! Lol

No kids with excema or asthma.

 

 

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[ikslo]

My son has many food allergies, including egg, soy, peanuts, and tree nuts. I ate all of them in large quantities while pregnant. Natural birth. He had eczema from day 1. Discovered egg allergy around six months while still breastfeeding exclusively and I was eating eggs every morning!!! (Strangely, I hated eggs before my pregnancy - only started eating them when I got pregnant.). Reacted to peanut first exposure at 11 months. We were not avoiding it. Was reacting to soy all along but we didn't pinpoint that one until he was 3 or so.

 

His eczema and asthma completely went away when that last allergen was removed from his diet.

 

I don't know. For DS, I guess he's in the first group where he's high risk and nothing we did would have made a difference. I refuse to blame myself for eating while pregnant or nursing, LOL.

 

I tell myself it was the multi-vitamin I took while pregnant - just to make it through the day, so I have somewhere other than myself to place the blame. :)

 

I hope the new guidelines work. I don't wish health issues on anyone.

[scholastica]

My son was allergic from birth. I ate peanuts while I was pregnant. He could not digest my breast milk when I had eaten peanuts or peanut butter. If I'd given him peanuts during that time, he likely would have died. It wasn't until he was tested at nine months that we realized how deadly his allergy really was. There was no family history of food allergies, either. I shudder at this advice.

[Wheres Toto]

Interesting.

 

None of my kids have food allergies or asthma or anything worse than occasional hayfever (ds is allergic to live Christmas trees).  I have asthma, allergies to anything that grows (trees, grass, plants, fur, feathers, bugs, etc.), and a recently discovered allergy to raw walnuts.

 

I'm pretty sure oldest had peanut butter at a young age.   Ds we waited until he was over a year but I ate it a ton while pregnant and breast-feeding.  Youngest dd had peanut butter around 6 or 7 months when ds "shared" his sandwich.  He ate peanut butter almost daily starting at about 18 months/2 years old so it was definitely around.

 

Both younger kids were c-sections, an emergency one in Ds's case.   I don't think he's ever been on antibiotics (his sensory issues/food pickiness made giving medicine very very difficult before he was old enough to bribe), and younger dd has probably only once or twice.

 

Oldest dd was on antibiotics a TON as a baby.  She was in daycare from 7 weeks old and had non-stop ear infections her entire first winter, had chicken pox at 9 months old (just missed the vaccine), had pink eye multiple times.   That lasted the first year or two and she's been mostly very healthy since.

[Farrar]

I hope it works, I guess. I feel like we know so little about allergies, honestly. And that there's so much conflicting information and so many people following different safety measures for their allergies - partly because of different levels of allergy, but partly because of different ideas about allergies. It's all a little confusing.

[wapiti]

While we know a lot about the immune system, unfortunately it is only the tip of the iceberg.  One-size-fits-all guidelines are not appropriate IMO but yet the science is limited.

 

I have fraternal twins, one of whom has a peanut allergy, the other doesn't (though the other, twin B, reacts to peanut in non-allergy ways that I'd rather not get into).  Allergic boy twin A is also IgA deficient - common with food allergies - and there are relevant genes that turned up in 23andme testing, though I can't remember whether the twins' genes were different on this point; my dd definitely has more genes relating to IgA deficiency than twin B but yet she is not IgA deficient (nor was she premature).  Prematurity was an additional unfortunate factor - can significantly mess with immune system development.  Ultimately I made the error of giving him his first cut-up PBJ after returning from the 12-month checkup with multiple vaccines and just after having recovered from RSV; I conclude that there was much to confuse his provoked immune system.  Would he have turned out allergic anyway, I'll never know, but he is my only child of six with anaphylactic food allergies.

 

 

[StaceyinLA]

I don't know how I feel about this. There are studies regarding introducing solids early and it being a cause of allergies (maybe not particularly nuts).

 

I was never particularly careful about how I introduced solids. My kids were all over 6 months when they had their first solids, but I didn't do it in any particular order, although I tended to do avocado early on. None of my kids have food allergies (well, oldest seems to have an issue with gluten).

 

My grandchildren have been the same way. Dds didn't start solids before 6 months, but when they did, pretty much everything was fair game. We aren't big peanut butter lovers anyway, but all the babies have had almond butter well under a year, as well as eggs and Greek yogurt.

 

Now, all of my grandbabies were pretty intolerant of dairy as nursing babies for the first months, so my girls didn't eat dairy until the babies were around 6 months, but none have dairy allergies now.

[Serenade]

It seems like the skin issues might be a bigger indicator of future allergies than anything else?

I tend to agree with this. And the funny thing was that when my son had the bad eczema, and we were seeing a pediatric dermatologist at the University hospital, one of the residents told me that dermatologists don't believe eczema is caused by allergies, even though allergist think so. He wasn't the only one to tell me something like that, either. Well, maybe the allergies don't cause the eczema, but there is certainly a relationship.

[gingersmom]

Someone is resurrect ping old threads.

[Bluegoat]

My older kids were born when the recommendations were to hold of - hold off on allergens, hold off on food in general, and so on.  Lots of the breastfeeding crowd were really into this - I knew one mom who tried to put off introducing solids until 2!

 

I can't say I bought into it though - so I didn't follow them.  It just didn't make sense to me in terms of how humans eat.  I started solids as soon as they seemed to want them and then just fed whatever we ate.

 

So - I think the new recommendations are a good thing.  I'v had a few people tell me they found the idea of giving things like peanut to a baby scary, though, in such a way that it seemed to me they were missing that this is meant to be a way to prevent an allergy from developing. 

 

I've been following the same method with my current baby.

[Bluegoat]

Someone is resurrect ping old threads.

 

Oh heck!

[HTRMom]

Yes. I read it. I have allergies in my family. When my baby was 4 months old I started putting my finger in his mouth after I'd eaten peanut butter, egg, dairy, and other allergic foods. I have no idea whether it "worked" or not because he's 8 months old and won't eat food yet, so I can't tell whether he will get eczema and diarrhea like his siblings do after eating certain foods. If any of my kids develops an anaphylaxis allergy I will definitely find someone to try the new acclimation methods of allergy reduction, where they give you a speck of peanut dust and gradually increase until you can eat a peanut every day.

 

My second son has severe eczema, but no anaphylaxis type allergies. My first has gastro allergy to dairy only.

 

 

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[MomtoCandJ]

Hmmm didn't follow any guidelines as far as allergies with my girls, then again we are not a food allergy prone family. Dd2 does have eczema but it seems to have gotten better as she has gotten older. We do have allergies to certain detergents, medications and I'm allergic to most metals (as in no underwire bras for me and have to have 10k gold plus as far as rings and necklaces. My ears are extremely sensitive and I have given up the idea of having pierced ears). Dd1 doesn't have my metal allergy but it looks like dd2 may have it.

[Tess in the Burbs]

I don't know what to think about these recommendations.  My ds had dairy and egg allergies as an infant.  I fought tooth and nail to get him diagnosed.  He was 9 months when they finally relented and tested him.  He outgrew those about age 4 but still sensitive to dairy so did lactose free milk.  

 

About that time we moved to an area with peanut farms nearby.  Until then my ds had NO nut allergies.  However, within the year he developed peanut allergies and eventually tree nut allergies as well as sunflower seed(he switched to sunbutter when allergic to peanuts) and then sesame.  We moved away from that area 3 years ago and his peanut allergy has consistently been getting less and less.   He will food challenge peanut this fall when allergy season will be at a low for here.  He's outgrown almost all tree nuts as well in the last 3 years.  Sesame is his true only high allergy food at the time, with seeds being a new one to avoid(flax and pumpkin, etc).  

 

I just think there is so much they do not know.  I ate tons of PB when pregnant with him but he didn't developed the peanut allergy until we lived in an area it was in the air.  And now it we aren't in that area he's growing out of it.  His testing also can't be done in spring when Birch trees are at a high allergy level or all his tests are positive.  Wait until allergy season is less and his tests are negative or barely positive.  Dr's just don't know enough and I think the recommendations will continue to change year after year.  

 

We are at the point if DS has an aversion to something he doesn't eat it.  He is allergic to shellfish but hates all seafood and the Dr advised to let him never eat any of it.  She too thinks a strong aversion is gut instinct.   We have moved DS over to almond milk with no issues this year.  but I know there is always the possibility of change in these allergies and something that is negative today might not be ini a year.  We just go with the flow and adapt as his allergies change.  

[Katy]

For those who did 23andme, if you want to know if you have the gene, it's rs9275596.  You can search for that gene under the browse raw data feature. The allergic variant is C/C, which means you have a 3x higher risk of severe food allergies such as peanut.

 

I have the variant. I don't have peanut allergies, but I do have severe wheat allergies, and some other mild food allergies.

 

I do have a cousin who is severely allergic to peanuts though.  They've been able to do some sort of desensitization, so they no longer think it is life threatening.

[Guest]

I really don't know what to say or think about this; there is too much anecdotal experience whirling around me for me to see any one pattern being applicable to all. 

 

I'm nearly 60 and was born with allergies to everything except bananas, rice, lamb and soy.  (Part of the reason I delayed having children is that I wasn't sure I could handle having child like my mother had...). Anyway, the doctors at that time told my mom (a nut, peanut-butter, eggs, dairy, food fan) to give me tiny amounts of allergens so I would become desensitized.  She did so, and all it resulted in was innumerable and scary trips to the emergency room, 25 miles away.  

 

I won't go into the rest of the long and boring story of my allergies, but short story--over years and years and in avoidance of allergens after the age of 3, I came to where I could eat everything except eggs and nuts.  And when I was pregnant and nursing, I could even eat eggs!  Then about ten years ago, foods started causing problems again and now, I can't eat eggs, nuts, dairy of any kind, bananas, most shellfish,  most seeds, and wheat doesn't do me any good (but it is not anaphylactic, just annoying).  

 

See what I mean?  It's gone around and come around, and so maybe small amounts of allergen introduction works for a LOT of people, but it doesn't work for everyone, which says to me, bottom line, it's up to each Mom/Dad/person to use their Spidey Sense and pay attention to what happens as reactions and make decisions based on the information at hand and how it plays out.  

 

The thing that bugs me most is when people say "You wouldn't have these kinds of problems if you had done (this)...."  Because it isn't always that cut and dried.  

 

 

[wapiti]

For those who did 23andme, if you want to know if you have the gene, it's rs9275596.  You can search for that gene under the browse raw data feature. The allergic variant is C/C, which means you have a 3x higher risk of severe food allergies such as peanut.

 

Thanks for posting this.  Interestingly, my fraternal twins are both heterozygous (CT) for this SNP.  One has peanut and other serious food allergies as well as asthma.  The other twin has no IgE food allergies, but has an otherwise thoroughly-messed-up immune system, including an immune deficiency.

 

I am also heterozygous (CT) and have no food allergies or really any significant allergies of any kind.  The only other child I have results for is TT, has no IgE food allergies but does have weird immune/GI issues that we are just beginning to sort through.

[Garga]

It drives me bonkers. My dh is allergic to nuts, so I was told by my sons' pediatrician to avoid nuts for the first 4 years of life? Then, he got a rash around his lips when he had some peanut butter, so we avoided it.

 

He had allergy testing when he was 11 or so, and the allergist said, "Well, has he eaten nuts?" "No." Frustrated sigh from allergist, "He should have been given nuts when he was young."

 

Well...that's not what the ped said when he was young. And I clued in to the fact that they don't really know what the proper thing to do is and they're all winging it at this point.