I am 14 weeks pregnant and desperate to find out if there is anything I can do to improve the odds of NOT passing my allergies on to my baby.
I just found out there is a name for my allergies - Oral Allergy Syndrome. My food allergies aren’t life-threatening, but they are inconvenient and uncomfortable.
I have read very opposing theories - namely, eat as many foods as possible to increase my baby’s exposure to them, vs. avoiding all foods that may cause a reaction, in order to decrease my baby’s exposure to them.
Does anyone know of a prevailing theory or train of thought re: allergies?
Along with plain old hay fever, I am allergic to birch pollen, most nuts and raw apples carrots potatoes pears peaches plums nectarines tomatoes cucumbers.
Didn’t see anything useful on their website, but they do have contact info.
On the other hand, they are upset with the movie Monster-in-Law because a character protrayed as crazy and evil abuses someone’s food allergy and this is offensive to People With Food Allergies.
Forgot to add my WAG:
I don’t know if the heritability of allergies is understood well enough for a particular course of action to be well grounded. (English: we don’t know why, if, or when allergies might pass on to offspring)
For example: My dad isn’t allergic to anything. My mother is allergic to bees and certain medications. I have no bee allergy, am much less allergic to one of the same medications, and have a food allergy that neither parent displays. Simple inheritance is definitely not the mechanism here, if anecdotal evidence is worth anything.
All of the info I’ve read on food allergies follows the “don’t feed your kid anything until a year (other than breast milk) and then introduce things one at a time for a week each, saving potential allergens until after age 2” advice train. I’ve never encountered any advice for preventing allergies during pregnancy.
For what it’s worth, my mother is dermatalogically challenged when it comes to allergies. She gets hives, redness and itchiness from quite literally every plant that grows in North America, with the exception of one tree that grows only in the Everglades. (Scratch tests revealed this information, it’s seriously not hyperbole.) She is also allergic to cats, guinea pigs and most other furry critters - nasal and skin allergies. She’s got a generous handful of food sensitivities (I’m not a fan of the word “allergy” as it relates to food unless we’re talking anaphylaxis).
I spent most of my years with not a single allergy - nasal, skin or food. In my mid-twenties, I developed a mild nasal allergy to cats and a skin allergy to pine trees.
So, even given the range of your food sensitivities, it is not predestined for your baby to have them as well.
I have pollen, dust, mite and animal allergies, mild allergy to some nuts and some oral allergy syndrome which was much worse as a kid. I am mildly asthmatic and have fairly bad exzema.
My husband had horrifically bad asthma as a child, suffers moderately now, has no food allergies but is allergic to some pollens and animals.
Knowing this, I was extremely careful to avoid triggers when I was pregnant with our first kid, breastfed exclusively for five months, breastfed for over a year, and introduced solids very gradually. This kid has a life threatening allergy to walnuts, is allergic to all other nuts of all varieties, also animals, pollen, mites, eggs, dust and mites. He also has oral allergy syndrome. He has bad asthma and horrible eczema which makes his life a misery.
Younger kid came along when we were tired and beaten down, and I ended up in hospital for three months of his pregnancy so had little or no control over the food I ate. I didn’t have enough milk so he ended up on a bottle at 6 months old. He has mild cat allergies, no food allergies and a little bit of eczema.
Go figure. I think it is important that you read up about allergies and then decide to pick one approach (as you have found, the opinions vary wildly as to what to do!). After you have made an informed decision the next step is not to blame or congratulate yourself for whatever results! It seems to be a total lottery…
I feel that I should also mention that there is some evidence that keeping a kid’s environment too clean may increase the risk of allergies… so don’t be too fanatical about housecleaning and encourage playing with mud pies.
Seriously though, the kid’s environment doesn’t have to be sterile, althought I’ve known some folks who attempt that. The human immune system works pretty good most of the time, and may need some stimulation to develop properly.
I read a while back that what seems important in determining how many allergies a kid has is how many allergy symptoms the mom has during the pregnancy.
Note it doesn’t matter how many allergies mom has, just how many symptoms during the pregnancy.
So, if you could seal yourself away from any allergens throughout the pregnancy, the kid should be fine.
I can’t remember where I saw this but it was probably less than 5 years ago.
Also, I think I’ve heard several times recently that researchers think the immune system needs challenges, things to work on. So if you provide a sterile enough environment for a baby, he’ll develop allergies, as that’s the closest thing his immune system can find to a real challenge. This is a theory as to why allergies and asthma are on the rise among the children getting the best medical care today. In fact I saw something about this on the news the other day and remarked to Mrs. Napier that we would start to see medically prescribed infections, illnesses that are contageous but don’t have much in the way of symptoms, whose purpose is to provide your immune system something to work on so it doesn’t go pick wheat or oak or something to obsess over.
When my daughter was born two years ago, we did a fair bit of research on this. There is no solid answer, but the consensus seemd to be that sources of life threatening allergies (things that can cause anaphalactic shock, peanuts, shellfish, bee stings, etc) should be avoided until the child is at least 1 1/2, preferably closer to three for any serious quantities.
However, with common allergens that just cause a membrane reaction (pollen, pet dander, etc), sensitivity to them later in life decreases with the amount of exposure in the first five years. Children with more than 3 cats or dogs in the household had significantly less pet allergies than kids with no pets.
Thanks all.
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Napier ** - that’s what scares me (the avoiding triggers I mean) - I’m just starting my second trimester at the beginning of allergy season, which for me will last until September, so a good 4-5 months of my pregnancy is during the WORST possible time for me, allergy-wise.
My hay fever makes my food sensitivities much worse.
Plus, all allergy medicines have of course not been tested on pregnant women, so I am trying to take them very sparingly, which means misery for me.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr … if I get pregnant again, it will be planned so the bulk of it is NOT during allergy season.
But I do appreciate the advice - I have no worries about what to do once the baby is born - I know there is a ton of information regarding that. I was just curious about what I can do NOW.
That was my question actually. What are you going to do if your allergies are normally controlled with medication?
If your seasonal allergies lead to stuffy sinuses, like mine, you might want to pick up a container of Burt’s Bees bath salts. They’re scented with lemon and eucalyptus. My friend would mix them with very hot water and use the steam to clear her sinuses while she was pregnant. Swore by it.
P.S. Hokkaido Brit, best wishes and many hugs to you and your kids.
During your pregnancy, there is not a whole lot you can do to try to decrease your baby’s likelihood of developing allergies down the road. You can try to avoid exposures to stuff you are allergic to, but hopefully you would be doing that anyway.
Once your baby is born:
-breastfeeding if you can
-letting your child play in the dirt
-letting him or her be exposed early to pets like dogs and cats
-getting him or her exposed to other grubby little kids (I say this as the mother of a toddler myself, with affection)
are probably the best things you can do to minimize your baby’s chances of developing allergies. For the food allergies, I think the current advice is still to avoid exposure to commonly allergenic foods (eggs, peanuts, shellfish, etc) until the child is older than 2 years, but you will probably want to discuss this with your child’s pediatrician.
Good luck. We followed this regimen for our toddler, trying to reduce his risks of developing asthma, and so far so good. Some kids will develop their allergies regardless, but hopefully less intensely / severely than they would’ve otherwise.
