A Giveaway Is Coming!

Stay tuned this week ... and there's some exciting news to share too!

Keep up with the latest

So glad I made the call!

I had a conversation this week with a friend who's children have just undergone allergy testing which got me questioning my current breastfeeding diet. Today I also had a really helpful chat with someone involved in Childhood Allergy and Immunology Research at Princess Margaret Hospital. Both mentioned the latest research that showed that some exposure to the allergens (this is in the case where anaphylaxis doesn't occur but they are even doing this in a hospital setting more and more now) at an early age is more likely to assist with growing out of the allergy rather than complete avoidance.The other thing was that my friend's baby wasn't able to be skin-prick tested for peanuts because she had never been exposed to peanuts via breastmilk or orally and so the test could have shown a false negative. This got me thinking that it's highly likely Miss 5mths hasn't been exposed to peanuts since I definitely haven't eaten them since she was born and quite possibly not even while I was pregnant. That will mean she won't be able to be tested for it or some other nuts (I have eaten almonds and hazlenuts) unless I expose her to them. The lady from PMH gave me some really helpful advice so here's my plan:

1. I'm going to start having a very little bit of dairy and egg maybe once a week and as long as her eczema doesn't get out of control I will keep doing it.

2. I'm also going to do some stealthy night-time nut eating to ensure she has been exposed to the nuts before we do allergy testing. This will mean I will have to be really careful to get all contaminated utensils etc into the dishwasher and washed before breakfast - not too hard but must remember to be vigilent! I shower at night so should be clear of nuts before I see Mr 5 in the morning. And get the nuts up high and always remind babysitters that they aren't for Mr 5!

3. Miss 3 has also missed out on eating nuts because of Mr 5. I'm pretty sure her skin-prick test negatives to nuts were valid since she would have been exposed while I was pregnant and breastfeeding (we only found out about Mr 5's allergies after she was born) but she should keep eating them semi-regularly and so should Miss 5mths once we have determined she's ok with them. Next year Mr 5 is full time at school so that should give us some easy opportunities to eat them without him around as long as we clean up and brush teeth etc before we see him. This is a bit scary but worth doing I think.