Because you had an allergy free life, will your child too?

For millions of people in the world today, a simple dinner at a restaurant can be fatal. A trace of hazelnut in a pudding, a bit of cheese that fell into a sauce – a heavy burden for anyone to bear, let alone the children whose lifestyles must be severely and frustratingly curbed to avoid all these potential hazards.

Clinical food allergies affect 10% of children under the age of one and 4-8% of children up to the age of five1; and the effects on families having a child with a food allergy are significant. Constant vigilance is required to help reduce the risk of anaphylaxis; with some parents having to delay returning to work because of the extra time needed to find and prepare safe food, as well as treat the eczema which many children with food allergies also have.

Despite significant efforts, these numbers are still on the rise. According to a study released in 2013 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food allergies among children increased approximately 50% between 1997 and 2011.2

While there is plenty of information to indicate that your diet during breastfeeding could affect allergy development (due to the transfer of antibodies from milk to the child), there is little mention of this during the pregnancy period. A recent study conducted by xtend-life.com*, examined behaviors of 400 mothers for the purpose of better understanding this growing phenomenon.