We had some excitement at our house this past month when my 8-month-old daughter had two systematic allergic reactions to food.
The first time, my mother, my 3-year-old and I were eating lunch around the kitchen table. I gave the baby a tiny spoon full of plain, organic yogurt. My mom immediately noticed a hive on her lip. Within 15 minutes, her body was covered in hives and her eyes were swelling. We headed to the pediatrician immediately, where a dose of Benadryl stopped her reaction.
The second time was at an outdoor cafe next door to the allergist’s office we had just visited. I wiped a bug off her cheek with hummus on my finger, then watched her touch the hummus and put her fingers into her mouth. Ten minutes later, the hives returned. This time, we walked straight back to the allergist’s office, where the doctor gave her another dose of antihistamine that stopped the reaction.
After both of these episodes, my husband felt shocked. What did we do wrong? How did our daughter develop such severe food allergies? I didn’t find many answers.
There have been several systematic reviews on the cause, diagnosis and treatment of food allergies in babies and children. And they’ve all come to the same conclusion: We don’t know much about how to prevent or treat food allergies.
A 2010 review in the Journal of the American Medical Association found there were no uniform criteria for diagnosing food allergies. The practice of eliminating allergenic foods from the diet has rarely been studied, and there is not enough data to support immunotherapy as a primary treatment.
A 2014 review in the journal Allergy that looked at the evidence on preventing allergies found many of the same problems. In reviewing 74 studies, it found no evidence to recommend that pregnant or breastfeeding women should change their diet or take supplements to prevent allergies. The data provided mixed findings about the benefits of breastfeeding for infants. And it found no preventative benefits to giving infants soymilk or delaying the introduction of solid foods.
A 2006 systematic review found some evidence that introducing solid foods at a very early age – before babies are 4 months old – may contribute to eczema, a skin rash that commonly accompanies food allergies.
And a Cochrane review found insufficient evidence to support supplementing infant diets with probiotics to prevent food allergies.
None of these reviews offered evidence that applied to my daughter’s situation. She was breastfed exclusively until she was seven months old, and then tried fruits and vegetables one at a time. No one else in our family has food allergies. So for us, her condition is a complete mystery. Other than avoiding allergenic foods, there is no way to prevent or treat her condition.
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