My daughter saw two newspaper articles laying on the floor next to my desk that discussed eating allergens while pregnant to avoid having children with food allergies. Immediately, she gave me her raised eye brow look and asked why didn’t I eat tree nuts when I was pregnant with her? I promptly explained that I ate Thai food weekly when I was pregnant with her brother and he is allergic to many ingredients in Thai food (peanut, tree nuts, etc.). Then when I was pregnant with her, I did not eat peanut, tree nuts, etc. and she still developed a tree nut allergy. I have to be honest and say, that I don’t know what the answer is to that age old question: What to eat when pregnant to avoid food allergies?
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When I was pregnant with my daughter, the recommendation was to NOT eat potential allergens and I obliged. We were also told to defer feeding nuts for three years too. My daughter is now 10 years old, so neither suggestion panned out for us. Hum, can we say frustrating? My daughter brought this up to her allergist a few days ago and he assured her that if you are going to be allergic, then you are simply going to be allergic. Her brother has severe allergist and the odds were high that she would too.
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I confess to feeling confused with the new findings. My anxious side cringes at the thought of women eating nuts and then giving young toddlers a potential allergen and then waiting to see what will happen. I can’t imagine watching anaphylaxis develop in a small child as an experiment to confirm an allergy or not. My side that trusts science wants to say, of course, follow protocol and eat nuts and then introduce Peanut butter to a toddler. The recent articles, such as, “Eating Nuts During Pregnancy Linked to Lower Allergy Risk” from the Boston Globe, make me feel like Sybil with multiple personalities! Although, if you have family history of allergies and/or anaphylaxis then these recommendations might be a moot point.
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One of the hardest things I find about managing both life threatening food allergies and asthma is talking to others. I hate to be the one that might be perceived as demanding, pushing or for asking too much. What I now know, fourteen years later, is that honest, clear information presented with kindness works!..
My guess is that it is in the genetics somewhere, just like most things. For example, they are finding that those who that are more susceptible to autism and should avoid certain vaccinations because they could trigger autism have a certain gene that makes them more likely to develop autism. They are also finding that Fibromyalgia is linked to certain types of characteristics in certain cells. Autoimmune disorders are in the genetics, so why not allergies?
Though I don’t think allergies are inherited per se, I do believe there is a link but with our immune systems because allergies are essentially our bodies reacting to a “normal” item as a “danger”. Some argue that our bodies don’t have to fight as hard to survive because we are so “clean”, so instead of fighting “real threats”, our cells decide to make up their own, especially if it is a food or item that has been highly tampered with (i.e. GMO foods, such as peanuts and soy). If you look at the top 8 list of food allergens and the ones on the rise, those foods/items are things that generally tend to be high GMO or otherwise tampered with by science. Some people also have been able to “cure” their allergies by switching to non-GMO, organic eating. I know my hubby who has issues with milk can drink grass-fed, non-homogenized, farm fresh milk without issue, but can’t drink anything else without getting a gut ache (he is not allergic, though). Makes one think, if nothing else.
I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t claim to, but I know this: there is no simple answer. My friends, who have no known peanut allergy in their entire extended family, have a daughter with anaphylactic peanut allergies. They did introduce foods quickly, but they had no reason not to based on family history. Why would they think that their daughter would have food allergies when no one else in their family did? Now, interesting to point out, they do have non-food allergies in the family that can be severe.
Perhaps if there are allergies (or even autoimmune disorders which show that the immune system is not normal) of any type in your family, especially those with severe hives or asthma, you should be aware that food allergies are a possibility, just like if you have an autoimmune disorder your children are more incline to have one, too, just not necessarily the same one. Just a thought… Hope that all makes sense.
Hi Julie,
We have no food allergies in our family, but do have asthma and hay fever. I think once there are immune issues within a family history we are possibly in store for some kind of allergies.
I hope the answers come within our lifetime!
Great post!! I just blogged about this issue this week, too. You might like to read it: http://maycontains.blogspot.ca/?m=1
Hi Anne, I will check it out. Isn’t it nice that we are all talking about it?
Hi Caroline,
I recently saw some long discussions about this on a couple of different peanut/nut allergy Facebook groups. Kind of like an unofficial survey of the mothers there. The responses (over 100) were all over the place. I couldn’t see any pattern, nor could anyone else. I avoided peanuts and nuts with both of my pregnancies and have one food allergic child and one without allergies. Other mothers did the opposite and had the same result.
It’s great that scientists are studying these possibilities, but personally I don’t think our answers lie in this direction.
Hi Brynn,
I think no matter where we turn, we just keep coming back to that food allergies are still a gray area. We are still at the beginning if our journey to cures and therapy
I blogged about my particular “anecdotal” evidence, a while back, and I really don’t think we have a definitive answer, yet. I think the preventative capabilities of the maternal diet are “dose dependent” and also affected by the fetal development timeline, but I certainly couldn’t say how much and when each food should be eaten. Given that none of us willfully “ate to create” these allergies, I think our guilt is more of the kind that comes from accidentally doing harm vs. purposefully doing harm and we can find some solace in that.
http://www.amazingandatopic.com/2012/09/maternal-diet-and-food-allergies-my.html
Hi Caroline,
I’ve seen this in the news so much lately. Both of my boys are allergic to peanuts. I ate peanuts with my first son but he’s still allergic. My youngest has many more food allergies including all treenuts, wheat, eggs, sesame and so many more. And of course I ate of those foods during pregnancy too. I worry that people who are not familiar with food allergies will misinterpret these articles and automatically shift the blame to mothers for not eating enough nuts. I could just hear my own mother trying to lecture me about how it’s my fault my son has a nut allergy because I didn’t eat them. (My side of the family chooses to remain ignorant about the severity of food allergies. But love to give advice). My final thought is at least people are talking more about food allergies. Hopefully, people realize they can be life threatening and they are on the rise with our children.
I also ate nuts during both pregnancies and one has them and one does not. ???