Food Allergy and Your Child

177 Pages·2007·1.5 MB·English

by  Alice Willitts

food allergy
‘This has been the single most useful tool in helping me work out how to manage my f
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son’s allergies. It has all the answers you need, more like a friend than a book.’
Fiona Case, mother. o
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‘I have found this practical guide invaluable, it should be pounced upon by parents

and professionals alike.’ Rachel Berry, nursery nurse. a
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An essential guideto the practical and emotional journey of bringing up children r & your child
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with food allergies. Written by two mothers with first-hand experiencethis
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reassuring book interweaves factual and practical details with stories from other
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parents of allergic children, leading you through all the challenges you’ll face while

learning to live with food allergy in the family. y
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(cid:2) Coping after your child’s first allergic reaction.
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(cid:2) Weaning allergic babies:a new liberated approach.
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(cid:2) Feeding your allergic child:within the family and outside the home. c A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR PARENTS
(cid:2) Socialising safely:birthday parties, playgrounds, toddler groups, holidays. h
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(cid:2) Living positively with food allergy:help your child, siblings and relatives adjust. l
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(cid:2) Teaching other people to look after your child:grandparents, childminders, Alice Willitts & Deborah Carter
babysitters, friends. a mothers of allergic children

(cid:2) Starting pre-school or school:how to overcome your fears and help your p
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child fit in. a
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Medical advisers Professor John O. Warner MD FRCPCH FMed Sci c
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and dietitianKate Grimshaw BSc MSc SRD RNutr l

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‘A tremendous source of vital information for parents that’s full of valuable insights’
Class Publishing Health David Reading, Director, The Anaphylaxis Campaign
food allergy
& your child
a practical guide for parents
Alice Willitts and Deborah Carter
Mothers of anaphylactic children.
Medical Adviser: Professor John O. Warner MD FRCPCH FMed Sci
Professor of Paediatrics, Imperial College, St Mary’s Campus, London since
September 2006. Previously Professor of Child Health at the University of
Southampton where he ran a large paediatric allergy clinic. He has been
involved with paediatric allergy and respiratory research for 30 years and
written over 300 articles on paediatric allergy and respiratory topics. He is
Editor-in-Chief of Paediatric Allergy and Immunology and he runs the
paediatric allergy clinic at St Mary’s Hospital, London.
Dietitian: Kate Grimshaw BSc MSc SRD RNutr
Research Dietitian for the University of Southampton specialising in food
allergy. Currently working on a Food Standards Agency study looking at the
relationship between infant feeding in the first year and allergy
development. This study forms part of a pan-European study. She is a
member of the Food Allergy and Intolerance specialist group of the British
Dietetic Association and is co-ordinator for the food allergy module of the
MSc in Allergy run at Southampton University. She provides dietetic advice
for the acute allergy clinic for families at Southampton General Hospital.
Copyright © Text, design and illustrations, Alice Willitts and Deborah Carter
2007
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
above, no part of this text may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior
written permission of the authors.
The rights of Alice Willitts to be identified as the co-author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
The rights of Deborah Carter to be identified as the co-author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
The authors welcome feedback from the readers of this work:
[email protected]
First published 2007
Class Publishing, Barb House, Barb Mews, London W6 7PA, UK
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.class.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The information presented in this work is accurate and current to the best
knowledge of the authors. The authors make no guarantee as to, and
assume no responsibility for, the correctness, sufficiency or completeness
of such information or recommendation. The reader is advised to consult a
doctor regarding all aspects of individual health care.
ISBN 9781859591864
Design: Simon Blacker, Blacker Design
Illustration: Eve Peasnall
Printed in China by 1010 Printing
Contents
FOREWORDS 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 6
INTRODUCTION 7
FAST-TRACK INFORMATION 9
WHERE TO START 10
GLOSSARY 14
IN THE BEGINNING 16
1. HEALTH PROFESSIONALS 16
2. FOOD ALLERGY ORFOOD INTOLERANCE? 26
3. MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY EXPLAINED 30
4. ADRENALINE AUTO-INJECTORS 36
5. ALLERGY TESTING 44
6. EMOTIONAL IMPACT 50
LET'S GET PRACTICAL 62
7. FEEDING YOUR BABY 62
8. SHOPPING 80
9. COOKING AND PREPARING FOOD 86
OUT AND ABOUT 98
10. SOCIALISING WITH AN ALLERGIC CHILD 98
11. EATING OUT AND FAMILY GATHERINGS 106
12. HOLIDAYS 114
13. TRAVELLING 120
IN SOMEONE ELSE’S CARE 126
14. TRUSTING OTHER PEOPLE TO LOOK AFTER YOUR CHILD 126
15. NURSERY AND SCHOOL 136
16. BIRTHDAY PARTIES 148
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE 154
17. FEAR OF HAVING ANOTHER ALLERGIC CHILD 154
18. A CHILD'S ALLERGY AFFECTS THE WHOLE FAMILY 160
CONTRIBUTORS 168
APPENDIX 169
REFERENCES 171
INDEX 172
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Forewords
I am delighted to have the opportunity to write a foreword to this outstanding
practical book on food allergy and your child.
All allergic problems, including food allergy, have increased significantly in prevalence
in developed countries around the world over the last 30 to 40 years. While we have
some ideas about why this increase has occurred, sadly we are not yet able to either
prevent allergy occurring in the first place or cure it. I obviously hope and expect that
research will identify strategies that will change this in the future. However, for the
present it is most important that your child has an accurate allergy diagnosis and that
you are given appropriate advice on how to handle it. This is no easy matter, and
having practical advice from ‘the horse’s mouth’ will be invaluable in your quest for
help. Deborah Carter and Alice Willitts have personal experience of the trials and
tribulations of working through the health system and coming to terms with the
problem. They have also sought input from other families and have been able to
produce an invaluable source of very important and useful information.
Having a child with a food allergy has a great impact on quality of life, creating
enormous and understandable anxieties for the present and future. However, it is
possible to gain a realistic acceptance of the problem and to carry on enjoying life to
the full. Deborah and Alice have shown, through their own experiences, that this is
possible.
I not only feel that this book will be of value to parents of children with food allergy
but also to health professionals. They would do well to read it very carefully to help
give them insights into all the issues and problems that are faced by families once
food allergy has been diagnosed. This will facilitate a shared understanding of the
problem and a vision of how it should be handled in the future.
Professor John O. Warner MD FRCPCH FMed Sci
Professor of Paediatrics, Imperial College, St Mary’s Campus, London.
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Food allergy can be worrying, there’s no doubt about that. The thousands of callers
who contact our helpline each year will testify to that. But the risks are most certainly
manageable. Families affected can learn how to raise their children in an atmosphere
of safety and stability.
Those were core messages of the Anaphylaxis Campaign when the charity was
founded in early 1994, and I firmly believe that they still hold true today.
However, something is often lacking to help families achieve a well-balanced
approach. People need high-quality, reliable help and information, and such support is
sometimes hard to come by. Allergy services in many parts of the country are
inadequate. GPs sometimes struggle to point the patient in the right direction. There
is information available on the Internet, but much of it is of questionable worth.
That is why this extremely helpful and comprehensive book will prove so valuable to
any parent of a child with food allergy. It offers insights that the authors are well
placed to give – having ‘been there’ themselves.
Our charity is at the forefront of the food allergy debate and we know how common
it is for misinformation to affect people’s judgement. But Alice Willitts and Deborah
Carter have approached the problems from a very well-informed and pragmatic
standpoint and have avoided many of the pitfalls that some magazine and newspaper
writers fall into.
For more than a decade, I have been meeting families who tell me they find coping
with food allergy a nightmare. That is completely understandable. The problems
associated with food labelling, eating out, and children’s parties may seem
overwhelming. I am sure if those families had had this book to guide them, life
wouldn’t have seemed anywhere near so hard.
David Reading OBE
Director, the Anaphylaxis Campaign
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all those who have helped us with the production of this book, giving
their time and expertise generously, especially: John Warner for his supervision, guidance and
enthusiastic support, Kate Grimshaw for opening our eyes with her liberated approach to
feeding allergic children, David Reading for his advice and guidance, John de Mora for his
belief in our project, Eve Peasnall for her delightful pictures, and Simon Blacker and Anne
Willitts for their invaluable help in turning our text into a book.
We would also like to thank all the parents and children who gave their personal stories to
this book to help others face the day-to-day challenges of bringing up allergic children.
Special thanks go to Lincoln Medical whose generous funding enabled us to produce the
book, our way.
Alice and Deborah
Thanks to the friends who looked after my children so lovingly while I wrote, especially
Helen, Ali, Julia, Jenny and Lucy; to all our kind Allergy Buddies; to my parents John and
Claire, thank you for your tireless support with childcare and in editing this text; to my
husband Martin for his unwavering encouragement and conviction that writing this book
was valuable and last but not least, to Zac with whom I’ve learnt so much and for being
just wonderful.
Alice
I wish to thank everybody who helped me to care for Thomas in those early days and bring
him to full health especially Angela Meyrick-Jones (Health Visitor), Julia Milligan (GP) and the
staff at Southampton General Hospital. I want to tell Thomas I feel privileged to be his
mum and thank him for his resilience throughout. I wish also to thank my daughters Rachel,
Sarah and Isabel for their care and patience when his needs were placed before theirs.
The writing of this book is testimony to the bravery of the children affected by allergy and
to the dedication and love given them by their parents.
Deborah
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Introduction
Food allergy amongst children is on the increase and if you are reading this book, the
chances are you have a child who is being made ill by the food he or she eats. Whether the
cause is intolerance or allergy it is distressing to see your child suffer as a result of eating
everyday foods.
This book offers parents and carers of children with food allergies a practical guide to
dealing successfully with the real, everyday situations you’ll find yourself facing.
You may, especially in the early days, wonder whether you can manage a special diet,
keep your child safe, or even get him or her to adulthood. By passing on the experiences
of other parents, we aim to guide you through the incredibly difficult first months when all
the information coming at you is new and the lifestyle you were used to is changing fast.
When our own children were first diagnosed we searched for guidance on how to
manage everyday living and found none. The information available was largely geared
towards allergic adults and came from medical experts. It seemed to us that unless you
happened to know someone who had a severely allergic child, you were on a lonely path
without a map or compass.
Having friends who share an understanding of what you’re going through, be it sleepless
nights, weaning, potty training or wobbles about a first day at school, is comforting and
reassuring. Suddenly we found our friends could not share these new fears and worries
with us and even meeting up for a play-date became stressful. Doctors couldn’t answer our
questions either as parenting food allergic children is not their area of expertise.
Trawling through bookshops, libraries and the internet we found no books that charted
the emotional territory of bringing up a food-allergic child. None held the stories and
insights of others who’d been there before. We felt that it was time the experiences were
passed on, not lost only to be learnt afresh by each new parent facing this turmoil. We
sought out other allergic families and it quickly became apparent that we were not the
only ones who would appreciate a more anecdotal guide to food allergy.
We interviewed and talked to many families with different experiences of living with
food allergy. Some were positive, some negative; some had good support networks, some
had none; some had money to throw at the problem, others were wholly reliant on the
NHS and state provision for care and support. We also talked to those who had severe,
multiple allergies often compounded by asthma or eczema; others who had milder
allergies to perhaps only one foodstuff. We gathered together all these fragments of
information and started piecing together what eventually became this book.
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We have chosen to present our research in a loosely chronological structure reflecting
the order in which most parents face issues, starting with the fast-track pages containing
the information you will need at diagnosis. Later chapters explore the practicalities and
emotional upheaval having an allergic child brings. We look at key moments in your child's
life that are made harder by their food allergy such as finding childcare, going on holiday,
birthday parties and starting school.
It is clear that there is no right or wrong way to react to the diagnosis of a life-
threatening condition in your child. We all respond according to our personality and
circumstances coupled with our expectations of parenthood. Personal and professional
situations play a part, as do pressures from family and friends, society and the medical
professionals in whose care we find ourselves.
Although we conceived this book in 2002, writing about food allergy is still largely the
province of medical experts as we take the book to print in 2007. We have been fortunate
enough to have the invaluable guidance of specialists Professor John O. Warner and Kate
Grimshaw who have addressed all the medical and dietary questions we could not have
answered.
We are not specialists, just women who have been through the experience of living with
severely allergic children and feel passionately that those best placed to inform other
parents facing the same challenges are those who’ve actually been there. If this book helps
just one other family come to terms with this life-changing experience then it will have
been worth all the effort.
We wish you all the best.
Alice and Deborah
Fast-track
information
Our aim in this section is to help fast-track you
to the best allergy information and support
available. From our own experience and that of
our interviewees, we know that you will need
information and support from a variety of
sources. We also know how hard it is to access
reliable help quickly. The tried and tested
pointers here will provide you with a reference
framework which you can source yourself, from
home, from bookshops or libraries, and digest at
your own speed.
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