Amelia Takes On the World

It seems like every week we hear more and more about kids and food allergies.  There are theories about introducing foods too early, introducing foods too late, allowing small amounts of the allergen, trying new foods every three days after no reaction, etc and more.

Unfortunately this is something for us that is starting to hit home.  Early on for Amelia she seemed to get gassy and fussy at times, and the gas drops did not help.  This seemed to be tied to times she’d also have ‘greener’ diapers – and we finally seemed to tie it to times I was having large amounts of dairy, since I was her source of nutrition.  Cut back on dairy and she definitely seemed to get better.  Later on introducing formula, we tried a dairy-based and she seemed fussy so we just went with soy – Amelia loved it and it seemed to work well.   When she was approximately 9 months old, I accidentally fed her a baby food that had both heavy cream and egg yolk – and that led to massive vomiting in the back seat of the car on our road trip to Florida (and can I say what a champ Chris was cleaning it with every wipe we had in the car while I dealt with Amelia?).

So we waited…. and around her one year birthday we started letting her have things that had minor amounts of dairy – frozen waffles, pancakes, etc.  And she seems fine with that.  Cheese she did okay with in a tiny amount.  However yogurt and whole milk both turned her skin red, and in fact when she rubbed her eyes they swelled up – so that’s back on the no list for now, though we still will allow things with minute amounts of dairy.   Now that she is almost 13 months I thought it’d be a great idea to try scrambled egg – why not? Great source of protein for breakfast, she is past the one year mark…. unfortunately after her 1/2 scrambled egg her mouth area was red and hivvy and her nose started running, and then her stomach emptied out – though thankfully the diaper route this time.  I am also thankful that it did not seem to affect her breathing.  We’ll be adding egg to the allergy list and calling an allergist today.  I guess we should not be too surprised, both myself and baby daddy have allergies and they say the genetic inclination is a key part of it.

I feel so bad that something I’ve introduced caused her harm – but yet, do you not introduce foods?  I know we are going to become a peanut-free, nut-free home just in case for now.  I don’t want to risk a reaction that could be even more serious.  No shellfish either.  She seems great with soy, and hasn’t had any fruit issues which seems to cover the top kid allergens.  I’m thankful hers haven’t been serious reactions yet, and I’m thankful they are both ones most kids outgrow.  I wish we knew more about food allergies – it seems like there is so much information, yet no idea really what to do about them.

If you have a food allergy story, I’d love to hear it in the comments.  Also any dairy & egg-free recipes your kids love?  I’d love to hear about those too!

Baby Momma

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 6:04 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.