Are Parents Food Allergy Paranoid With New Babies?
This was pointed out to us by Clark Bartram a Paediatrian from the US.
It’s from The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. See below for the abstract. The full report is $20US which you can get from their site.
I totally agree with these findings. I’d say that parents of new borns, that don’t have previous experience with food allergies would not be equipped to make a proper call on their childs condition, I know that we weren’t. Especially if the childs symptoms weren’t anaphylactic. It’s pretty obvious that there is an issue if you are off to the hospital with a dying child.
Aaron
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Newport and Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Background
There are very few population-based studies investigating the incidence of food hypersensitivity during the first year of life.
Objective
To determine the incidence of parentally reported food hypersensitivity and objectively diagnosed food hypersensitivity during the first year of life.
Methods
A birth cohort was recruited (n = 969). At 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, information regarding feeding practices and reported symptoms of atopy were obtained. At 1 year, infants underwent a medical examination and skin prick testing to a battery of allergens. Symptomatic infants underwent food challenges.
Results
Adverse reactions to foods were reported by 132 (14.2%) parents at 3, 83 (9.1%) at 6, 49 (5.5%) at 9, and 65 (7.2%) at 12 months. Of the subjects, 1.0% (8/763) were sensitized to aeroallergens and 2.2% (17/763) to food allergens. Between 6 and 9 months and 9 and 12 months, 1.4% (14/969) and 2.8% (27/969) infants were diagnosed with food hypersensitivity on the basis of open food challenges and 0.9% (9/969) and 2.5% (24/969) on the basis of double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenges. Cumulative incidence of food hypersensitivity by 12 months was 4% (39/969; 95% CI, 2.9% to 5.5%) on the basis of open food challenges and 3.2% (31/969; 95% CI, 2.2% to 4.5%) on the basis of double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenges.
Conclusion
Between 2.2% and 5.5% of infants have food hypersensitivity in the first year of life. The rate of parental perception of food hypersensitivity is higher than the prevalence of atopic sensitization to main food allergens or objectively assessed food hypersensitivity.
Clinical implications
In the first year of life, the rate of parentally perceived food hypersensitivity is considerably higher than objectively assessed food hypersensitivity.
Good stats, tnaks.
[...] Next, we have a post from the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Information Blog highlighting a recent study from the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology which compares the actual laboratory findings of food hypersensitivity with parental reports. I downloaded the whole paper as a .pdf which you can get by clicking here. [...]
Good article, I think the reason for this is the massive hyping of food allergies and “sensitivity” in the press and on the net. The way to combat this misperception is through education. See the info on Food Allergy on my blog (http://allergyasthma.wordpress.com/food-allergy/) from the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology and a video on a tragic case of misdiagnosed food allergies: http://allergyasthma.wordpress.com/tag/multiple-chemical-sensitivity/
I don’t think nearly as many parents are paranoid or imagining things as doctors seem to think. Many of these studies are severely flawed–see this post on my blog for some of the reasons why. It’s especially hard to tell what an infant’s symptoms are, because they can’t talk to tell us that they’re having severe stomach cramping or that their mouth and throat itch and feel funny.
It’s assumptions like this that make life even more difficult for those of us with extremely severe allergies or children with severe allergies. Even people with anaphylaxis have a hard time getting doctors to take their reactions seriously these days, partly because of this kind of rhetoric about paranoid parents who don’t know “normal” for their own child.
I’d still be careful of tossing around the “paranoid parent” label…
I’ve been accused of being one because I withheld potential allergens from my child long past the time most othe rparents had fed them.
Why? Because I have allergies. Because I’ve been in anaphylaxis myself three times due to allergy shots, had hives from three different foods, and I’m hoping that delaying and limiting exposure to allergenic foods might lessen the likliehood of my kids going through this…
Funnily enough, my allergy skin tests show me as severely allergic to several foods I eat with impunity. And the food that caused hives the quickest didn’t cause a rise on my skin test at all. And it appears to be dose-specific, because I got hives after eating it at every meal for three days (fresh melon season), and I’ve since learned I can eat smaller amounts less frequently without trouble. I think its perfectly possible that a child who has been fed the same food every meal for four days (as is recommended by The Experts) might have a reaction that doesn’t recur later. It doesn’t make the parents paranoid.