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Going to War Against Hereditary Childhood Food Allergies |
 For any parent, knowledge is the greatest resource you can have to fight any kind of medical issue your child may face. Perhaps one of the most difficult health challenge a parent could encounter is a hereditary health issue such as a childhood food allergy. When it is clear that certain allergy problems run in the family, that means that your child will have a high probability of developing certain childhood food allergies. It seems like parents are defeated before they get a chance to fight back.
But that is not the case. In fact, if there are certain hereditary childhood food allergies that you know your child will have to contend with, that knowledge gives you the advance warning to get ready for war. Your battle with childhood food allergies will not be a short battle and it may not be easy. But you can spare your child untold suffering from childhood food allergy symptoms if you prepare in advance to fight the war against childhood food allergies one day at a time, week after week and month after month.
The first fact that must be accepted early on to win the war against childhood food allergies is that you will not be able to "cure" the allergy or banish it from the life of your child entirely. Allergies are not like an illness in that an allergy results from a malfunction of the immune system, which causes the childhood food allergy to trigger the immune system to attack other wise perfectly good foods as though they were dangerous. There is no easy way to force the immune system to stop this behavior. But by getting out ahead of a hereditary childhood food allergy, you can stop the symptoms from happening and so neutralize the effect of the childhood food allergy.
While there is no cure for a childhood food allergies, studies have shown that many children outgrow their allergies by the time they reach late childhood or puberty. So the war against childhood food allergies is a waiting game. You have a good idea that the food allergy will become part of your child's life because of the legacy of that allergy that will come to him or her through heredity. So, as a good parent, you can get ready so the childhood food allergy does not surprise you.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has spent some significant time into researching tools and strategies for parents to use to fight a hereditary childhood food allergy. Those recommendations include…
- Breastfeeding is the best possible way to protect a child with who may be at risk to develop a childhood food allergy. If possible breastfeed your newborn at least one full year. To extend the time of nursing through to the second year is not being too protective especially when it comes to fighting the war against hereditary childhood food allergies.
- Do thorough research on what childhood food allergies may be in your child's hereditary lineage. During breastfeeding years, mom should eliminate those foods from her diet so no trace of the potential allergens can get through to your new son or daughter.
- Even if no symptoms of a childhood food allergy have surfaced, avoid introducing suspect foods that have historically been a source of allergy symptoms in your family. Also, avoid all common food allergy categories like fish, peanuts, eggs and cow's milk.
- When a child goes through the weaning process, buy only formulas that are hypoallergenic.
- Keep all milk products out of your child's digestive system until he or she is at least a year old.
- Avoid introducing eggs to your child's diet until after he or she is two years old.
- When introducing cereals to your child's diet, buy iron fortified products that do not use suspect foods that could set off a childhood food allergy.
- Stay in constant touch with your child's pediatrician and allergist to monitor the progress of the child.
The greatest body of knowledge about hereditary childhood food allergies is at your disposal in your own family. Interview your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles as to what childhood food allergies they had and the details of the symptoms. Learn all you can about what foods set the allergies off and in what form the foods were taken and when they outgrew that allergy.
Extend your interviews to cousins of your child as well as they would be in the same risk category for hereditary childhood food allergies. Find out from relatives how they made accommodations and fought their own war against childhood food allergies. They will want to do all they can to help you win your war to protect your child as well. They are family and they are there to help.
The good news is that if there are hereditary childhood food allergies in your child's genetic legacy, the odds are they will pass and your son or daughter will outgrow them. You can learn more about that maturity cycle when you interview your family about their history with childhood food allergies. Then when your child reaches the ages when the allergy is suspected to be gone from his or her system, you can slowly introduce that food category to the family diet and see your child begin to enjoy a full and happy life enjoying all of the foods that their friends love to eat.
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