Food allergies can arise at any age, even in the youngest children. It’s normal to feel scared or overwhelmed when your baby is diagnosed with food allergies.

The constant vigilance needed to manage a young child’s food allergy takes a mental, emotional and even physical toll on parents. More than 90 percent of food allergy centers in the FARE Clinical Network report treating patients whose parents suffer from anxiety related to their child’s allergies. And compared to mothers whose young children do not have food allergies, mothers of food-allergic children under age 5 have higher blood pressures and report greater stress.

If you’re a parent or caregiver who’s experiencing food allergy stress, it’s important to take care of yourself, too. Consider joining a FARE-recognized food allergy support group in your area to meet, share and advocate with families like yours, who “get it.” You can search for a local licensed mental health professional through the Food Allergy Counselor Directory. You are not alone on this journey!

Before the Diagnosis

Do not diagnose a food allergy on your own. Self-diagnosis can lead to unnecessary dietary restrictions and inadequate nutrition, especially in children. An allergist will take a thorough medical history, asking questions about overall health and eating habits to determine if food allergy may be causing your child’s symptoms and to identify the culprit food(s). The allergist will also perform a physical exam. Keeping a food and symptom journal prior to your visit can be a helpful tool to assist the doctor in establishing your child’s medical history.

The allergist may decide that further testing is needed before a diagnosis can be made. Learn more about diagnosis and testing.

After the Diagnosis

There’s no approved treatment to prevent food allergy reactions, so allergy management requires strict avoidance of the problem food. Young children are messy eaters, and infants are eager to explore everything they encounter with their mouths, making staple foods like cow’s milk, cheese and yogurt especially hard to avoid.

Infant Food Allergy Basics

Learn to Use the Epinephrine Auto-Injector

If your child had a serious reaction, hopefully you received a prescription for an epinephrine auto-injector. If not, call your doctor’s office today so that you child can be evaluated, diagnosed and given a prescription. Have your doctor demonstrate how to use it. Then practice with the trainer.

Know What to Do in an Emergency Situation

If your child is displaying any symptoms of anaphylaxis within minutes to hours of ingesting food, seek immediate medical treatment. Symptoms of anaphylaxis can include:

• Difficulty breathing
• Loss of consciousness
• Pale or blue skin
• Repetitive cough, wheezing
• Hives, redness or itching
• Diarrhea or vomiting
• Swelling of lips or tongue
• Itchy/runny nose, sneezing

Very young children or toddlers may put their hands in their mouths or pull or scratch at their tongues in response to a reaction. Children have unique ways of explaining how they feel during an allergic reaction.

Seek Resources and Support

A food allergy diagnosis is life-changing, both for the child and for the entire family. Connecting with others who are in the same situation and sharing experiences and support can be incredibly helpful. It also helps to know you are not alone.

• Download “Your Food Allergy Field Guide” on the FARE website to help with the transition from diagnosis to living well with food allergies
• Find a local or online support group
• Seek counseling if you or your child are experiencing feelings of depression, isolation or fearfulness
• The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases expert panel recommends nutritional counseling and regular growth monitoring to help patients avoid allergens and have a healthy diet

Related Conditions

Food allergies should also be considered when your child has previously been diagnosed with one of the following disorders. Symptoms across these disorders are often similar or related, so it is important to work closely with your doctor for an accurate diagnosis.

• Atopic dermatitis, also known as atopic eczema – food allergens can bring on redness, hives, itching, and flares of eczema, all of which may aggravate atopic dermatitis.
• Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) – Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) causes large numbers of eosinophils, a type of white blood cell, to gather in the esophagus (the tube that connects the mouth to the stomach). As a result, the lining of the esophagus becomes inflamed, making it difficult for food to go down. EoE can be triggered by certain foods. Symptoms vary, depending on age. With infants and toddlers, families often note feeding difficulties, refusal to eat, irritability, and occasionally poor weight gain. EoE is most common in infants, children and adolescents.
• Food Protein-Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (FPIES) – Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES) is a serious, non-IgE-mediated type of food allergy. FPIES is usually triggered by cow’s milk or soy, though some cereal grains (especially rice and oat) and other foods may cause it. The symptoms typically include severe vomiting and diarrhea. Reactions are often delayed by 2-3 hours after the trigger food is eaten. In most cases, FPIES is resolved by the age of three.
• Food protein-induced enteropathy syndrome – This is an uncommon disorder that presents in young infants as chronic diarrhea (commonly with abnormal quantities of fat due to reduced absorption), weight loss and growth delay. It is most often caused by milk allergy, though some other foods (e.g., soy, chicken, rice and fish) may cause it. Virtually all affected patients “outgrow” their symptoms by 2 to 3 years of age
• Food protein-induced allergic proctocolitis – With this condition, an infant will seem generally healthy but have visible specks or streaks of blood mixed with mucus in the stool. Many infants begin showing this symptom while being breastfed, presumably as a result of maternally ingested proteins excreted in breast milk. There are no specific diagnostic tests for this condition, so the role of allergens is typically discovered based on the history of reactions.

Cow’s Milk Protein

The stakes are high for managing infant allergies to cow’s milk protein. In the short term, each food allergy reaction diminishes quality of life and risks triggering the severe and potentially life-threatening symptoms of anaphylaxis. In the long term, having an active early allergy to cow’s milk – especially an allergy that causes eczema and damages the skin barrier – can increase the risk of developing other food allergies and additional allergic conditions such as hay fever and asthma. This progression of allergy development is called the allergic march.

Nearly 3 percent of U.S. infants develop a food allergy in the first year of life. More than half of these babies – 53 percent – react to cow’s milk protein. Infants encounter this common allergen in milk and milk products, as well as in breastmilk if milk products are part of the mother’s diet.

Peanut Food Allergy Prevention

Between 1997 and 2008, the number of U.S. children with peanut allergy more than tripled. During this time, in 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended delaying the introduction of commonly allergenic foods to children at higher risk for food allergy. Unfortunately, this recommendation wasn’t based on clear scientific evidence. We now know that delaying allergenic foods doesn’t protect against food allergies, and we have solid evidence that early introduction of peanut foods can lower the risk of developing an allergy to peanut.

Early Allergen Introduction to Decrease Food Allergy Risk

Recent landmark studies and guidelines are changing the way we think about early food introduction. Learn more in this webinar.