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Preventing (Food and Airborne) Allergies By Dr. Linda Folden Palmer Dr. Linda Folden Palmer is the author of Baby Matters: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Caring For Your Baby. She provides telephone consultations for colic, lactation difficulties, child nutrition and food allergy issues, and infant sleep challenges. Promoting attachment parenting principles, she is dedicated to raising awareness about how powerfully early parenting and healthcare choices can influence a child's mental and physical outcomes. Attempting to prevent sensitization to foods and other factors is often a valuable first step for protecting at-risk babies. Hypersensitive individuals exhibit more than one kind of sensitivity reaction just as often as not, and at least half of the infants who are intolerant of one or more foods will also have allergies to airborne allergens to some degree, generally beginning around the age of three. A mother with a strong allergy to pollens may have a child with a strong sensitivity to corn. Therefore, one may wish to cover airborne as well as food exposures in their preventive efforts. When allergies run in a family or have been experienced by either parent, or if irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, Crohn's, arthritis, or asthma are found in the family, many researchers suggest that attempts should be made to prevent sensitization. The intensity of the preventive measures implemented should depend on the frequency and severity of the symptoms in the family. After efforts to prevent sensitization are in effect, a reduced level of allergic reaction seems to maintain throughout the growing years. Expecting parents can attempt to avoid sensitization in their unborn child by reducing potential allergens in the pregnant mother's environment and diet, especially during the last 3 months of pregnancy. Enough research has been performed that we can be relatively certain that elimination will help to some degree, but there has not been enough study for us to know which kinds of allergens are more or less apt to cause fetal sensitization, or for us to predict the actual degree of protection and lifetime benefit. The effect of cow's milk in the mother's diet has been studied the most. While some trials show reduced childhood allergies when mothers avoid milk during the latter part of pregnancy, one investigation found no long-term statistical reduction of allergies in children whose mothers avoided cow's milk and egg during the last 12 weeks of gestation.1 Maternal smoking during pregnancy certainly affects development of asthma in the child,2 as does secondhand smoke exposure. The next, more certain step is to prevent sensitizing the infant after birth by reducing potential environmental irritants and allergens. Although factors such as pollen and air pollution may be difficult to avoid, the best technique is to reduce overall exposure by removing all irritants you can control, such as pet dander, cigarette smoke, and fragrances. Such measures are more convincingly beneficial after a child has been born. The child's diet is the other concern. Many times it has been shown that breastfeeding provides good protection against the development of allergies. When the lactating mother avoids dairy and other common allergens, this is even better. Avoiding milk during the last third of pregnancy as well as during lactation has been shown to provide a definite benefit, at least against early allergy.3 (This will also reduce mom's chances of developing toxemia.)4 The artificially fed infant can be started on hydrolysate immediately, avoiding any exposure to regular milk formula, and the nursing infant who is weaned early or who starts on supplements can receive the same. Although dairy hydrolysate is often poorly tolerated by infants already sensitized to bovine proteins, either from regular milk formulas or in utero, infants without this exposure are less likely to develop bovine protein intolerance from the lower concentrations in hydrolysates. These measures have been shown to reduce the chances of allergic disease in at-risk children (those with allergic parents) by 50% in a 5-year follow-up study.5 This same Canadian study revealed no long-term preventive benefit with soy formulas. The longer you wait before exposing your child to bovine proteins and other likely allergens, the less your child's chances of developing sensitivity. A Belgian investigation that evaluated hydrolysate formula against regular formula found a sixfold reduction in bovine protein sensitivity in the hydrolysate group at the age of six months, and just as above, a 50% advantage after 5 years, measured in terms of milk protein sensitivity.6 Colic in infants was reduced fourfold. Researchers who previously discovered these effects suggested that no infant should ever be exposed to cow's milk proteins during their first four weeks of life.7 All the evidence strongly agrees with this conclusion. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics released an advisory stating that milk products should not be provided during the first year of life. Milk formulas should certainly be included in this advisory since the chief motivation for this announcement was development of childhood diabetes. Studies report that cow's milk exposure from formula feeding during the first few months of life is the biggest risk from dairy for developing diabetes. Since formula companies provide large amounts of monetary funding to pediatric schools, associations, researchers, and practitioners, it is difficult for the AAP to promote their recommendation to any extent. Developing food intolerances or other allergies may be unavoidable in those with stronger genetic programming because allergic responses are highly hereditary maladies. Attempting to prevent reactions may at least reduce or delay symptoms. The big disappointment (and benefit) in preventive medicine is that you generally don't know what has been prevented in any individual case. Therefore, without having a certain sense of purpose, it is often difficult to implement preventive measures unless a problem in a previous child provides strong incentive. Remember, preventive decisions are based chiefly on family history, but certainly also must be predicated on their feasibility in any given situation.
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