food protein allergy baby symptoms

The core symptoms of infants with food protein allergy can cover the three major systems of the skin, digestive tract, and respiratory tract, ranging from rashes, diarrhea, and sneezing to severe laryngeal edema and anaphylactic shock. Symptoms vary greatly from individual to individual. Immediate reactions often appear within 2 hours after eating, while delayed reactions may be delayed until 72 hours after eating.

Let’s talk about a case I encountered in the outpatient clinic last week. Duoduo, who was just over 6 months old, added some cod fish paste for the first time. Within 20 minutes after eating, the area around her mouth turned red. She kept rubbing her face with her little hands. Her mother thought it was irritated by fish meat, so she applied some moisturizing cream and ignored it. However, in the afternoon, Duoduo started to have blood-streaked stools. Her parents were so scared that they went to the emergency room overnight, and were finally diagnosed with a cod protein allergy. In fact, parents like Duoduo who misjudge allergy signals as ordinary irritations really account for the majority.

Skin manifestations are the easiest signs of allergies for parents to identify. The most common ones are perioral erythema and urticaria. If the skin is bumpy to the touch, the baby will obviously feel itchy and keep scratching it. Some may even aggravate the original eczema and never get better. However, it should be mentioned here that there are actually differences in the judgment of mild perioral erythema in the industry: Some allergists believe that as long as it appears after eating and disappears after stopping eating, allergy can be highly suspected. ； Other pediatricians believe that the pH and irritation of the food itself may also cause redness of the skin around the mouth. Only when the same symptoms appear after at least two repeated meals can it be judged as an allergy and parents can avoid blind taboos.

Compared with skin symptoms that can be seen at a glance, allergic signals in the digestive tract are more likely to be mistaken for ordinary gastrointestinal problems. I once met a 3-month-old boy who drank ordinary formula milk and had hard stools every three or four days. He cried until his face turned red every time. The parents tried several probiotics and Qinghuobao, but it didn't work. They even fed the baby honey water (of course, this is absolutely not recommended, and the baby should not touch honey under 1 year old). Finally, after checking the allergens, he found out that he was allergic to cow's milk protein. After switching to a deeply hydrolyzed formula, his bowel movements became normal within a week. In addition to constipation, diarrhea, blood-streaked stools, repeated vomiting, milk refusal, crying when feeding, and even long-term suboptimal growth and development may be symptoms of food protein allergy. However, this is quite controversial. Many doctors in the child health department will remind parents not to casually classify delayed growth and mild diarrhea as allergies. After all, the gastrointestinal tract of babies under 1 year old is not fully developed and is prone to irregular bowel movements. Blind taboos may lead to insufficient nutritional intake of the mother or baby, which in turn affects growth.

There is also a more hidden type of allergic symptoms of the respiratory tract, which many parents do not associate with what they eat. For example, some babies rub their noses and eyes every time after drinking milk, sneeze several times in a row, or even cough or wheeze slightly. Parents always think they have a cold, and they don't get better after taking medicine. It takes a long time to find out that they are allergic. If you encounter a severe and rapid allergy, you may even experience laryngeal edema, difficulty breathing, and confusion. In this case, you must go to the emergency department immediately. If it is too late, it may be life-threatening. This is the consensus of all pediatricians, and there is no controversy.

Moreover, there are two types of allergies: immediate-onset and delayed-onset. In the case of immediate-onset, symptoms will appear within a few minutes to 2 hours after eating, so it is easy to find the cause.； Delayed onset is like peek-a-boo, and it may take 24 to 72 hours for the onset to occur. This is also the core reason why many parents are unable to identify the allergen.

In the five years I have been working as a child care provider, I have seen too many parents who misunderstand the symptoms. They either avoid all eight major categories of allergens as soon as eczema develops. The mother eats white rice and boiled vegetables every day, and ends up becoming anemic herself, and the baby's eczema is not cured either.； Or it could be that the baby had been having bloodshot stools for half a month, but he still thought it was because of a fever, and refused to check. In the end, the baby was anemic before he came to see a doctor. In fact, there is really no need to be so extreme. If you suspect that your baby is allergic, just keep a food diary. Write down what you ate, how much you ate, and any symptoms that occurred afterward. Find a specialized pediatric allergist for evaluation. If necessary, do a food challenge test. This is more reliable than searching hundreds of symptom comparisons online.

Oh, by the way, I also want to remind you that many parents think that everything will be fine if they check the allergen IgE. In fact, this is not the case. For non-IgE-mediated delayed allergies, conventional allergen testing cannot detect them at all, and they still have to rely on food diaries and provocation tests to judge. Every baby's constitution is different, and allergy manifestations are also strange. Don't set rigid standards. More observation and more evaluation by professional doctors are better than anything else.