Hypoallergenic food for babies

Do not deliberately delay the introduction of common highly allergenic foods such as eggs, milk, peanuts, fish, shrimp, and nuts. After the baby starts introducing complementary foods at 4-6 months of age and tolerates ordinary high-iron rice noodles, gradually and in small amounts introducing the above foods before 1 year old can actually reduce the risk of long-term allergies. This is also the current mainstream consensus in the fields of pediatrics and allergy medicine around the world.

A while ago, I accompanied my best friend to take her 6-month-old baby to childcare. She was still debating whether to wait until the baby is 1 year old before giving her eggs. She said that her mother had repeatedly warned her that eating egg whites as a child would cause rashes and that it would be safer to start eating egg whites later. In fact, it is not just the elderly in her family. Many parents born in the 1990s received the same feeding guidance when they were young. Until now, many grassroots child care doctors will give parents such conservative advice. The conflict between old and new ideas is indeed quite common now, and the logic of the old ideas is easy to understand: in the early decades, the research on food allergies in children was not complete. Doctors generally believed that babies with weak stomachs would avoid pitfalls if they were exposed to highly allergenic foods later. This experience has been used for decades, and many parents still buy into it.

Of course, this does not mean that the old view has no reference value at all. If the baby has suffered from repeated severe eczema, clear food allergic reactions, or both parents have a history of severe food allergies, some conservative allergists will indeed recommend doing a serum-specific IgE test or skin prick test first to assess the risk of allergy before introducing it under the guidance of a doctor to avoid rashly adding extreme cases such as severe laryngeal edema and anaphylactic shock. Both views actually have clinical basis. The core difference is based on the different situations of ordinary healthy babies and babies with high allergy risk. There is no absolute right or wrong.

In 2020, the "New England Journal of Medicine" published a study that was followed for 5 years. The data is quite convincing: among infants who are at high risk of peanut allergy, the group that introduces a small amount of peanut products at the age of 4-6 months has an 81% lower incidence of peanut allergy at the age of 5 than the group that waits until the age of 5 to be exposed to peanuts. This study is also one of the core basis for promoting the update of feeding guidelines. The principle is not complicated. When the baby is 4-6 months old, it is the window period for the establishment of intestinal immunity. At this time, a small amount of exposure to different food proteins can help the body establish oral immune tolerance. To put it bluntly, it allows the immune system to recognize these proteins and know that they are "home", so that they will not attack if they are exposed to them again. If they are not exposed for a long time, the immune system may regard normal food proteins as intruders and trigger allergic reactions when they encounter them.

When I was raising my baby and adding complementary foods, I had no reaction after eating high-iron rice noodles for 5 days. On the 6th day, I gave him half a spoonful of steamed soft egg yolk. There was no problem after eating it for 3 days. I also added a little bit of boiled river shrimp paste. My mother was still there at that time. I muttered that I was messing around, but the result is that the child is now 3 years old and is not allergic to anything he eats. On the contrary, there is a child in the same community whose parents listened to the old man's advice and gave him eggs for the first time when he was 1 and a half years old. As soon as he ate them, his face broke out in hives, and he still can't touch eggs. However, I have also seen a baby with a special constitution who vomited for a whole day when adding egg yolks at 7 months old. He went to the hospital to find out that he was indeed allergic to eggs. The doctor told him to avoid it for 6 months before trying it slowly. Don’t be too anxious. Most babies with mild to moderate food allergies will gradually tolerate it as they grow older and their immunity is improved.

Don’t think that since you want to add it early, you should just feed it once. Every time you add new highly allergenic food, you still have to add it separately. Add the amount from the needle tip to the larger and slowly increase it. Observe for 3-5 days. If it is just a little red around the mouth and disappears in half an hour, it is not If you use it too much, just try a smaller amount next time. If you develop rashes all over your body, frequent vomiting, or difficulty breathing, send you to the hospital immediately. Do not touch this food for the time being. Wait 3-6 months before asking a doctor to evaluate whether it can be reintroduced.

There are many complementary foods on the market now that are labeled as "anti-allergenic", such as deeply hydrolyzed rice noodles and allergy-free complementary food packets. In fact, there is no need to buy them for ordinary healthy babies. Hydrolyzed complementary foods are prepared for babies who have been diagnosed with cow's milk protein allergy or have severe allergic symptoms. Healthy babies who eat them for a long time may not be exposed to enough food protein, which affects the establishment of oral immune tolerance, and makes them more susceptible to allergies. Pure IQ tax.

After all, there is really no standard answer to the matter of hypoallergy. You don’t have to be stuck at a certain point in time, and you don’t have to just follow whoever tells your baby what to add. It’s better to pay more attention to the baby’s reaction. If you are really not sure, call a pediatric allergy department and let the doctor give you advice based on your child's condition. It is more reliable than just guessing on your own.