Important Facts Pertaining To Food Allergy Safety And Your Child
Article Source: HealthSnare.com
About 7% of people under 18 are children with food allergies. Most children outgrow their food allergies and intolerance by age 5, but 2% of adults have endured lifelong allergies to peanuts, wheat, milk or shellfish. Some allergies will cause a mild skin rash, runny nose, diarrhea or nausea. In more serious cases, your child may have difficulty swallowing, talking or breathing and may throw up or pass out. It is essential that you educate yourself, your child and your child's caregivers on the seriousness of child food allergies.
The most important part of raising a youngster who has a food allergy is to provide for their safety. In the home, you are going to have to make alterations in many of your recipes to ensure that your son or daughter doesn't come into contact with their allergens. It's normal to feel frustrated and constrained in the beginning, yet after a little digging, you'll discover alternatives for pretty well all of your favorite recipes.
There are all sorts of cookbooks, such as The Allergy Self-Help Cookbook, that offers in excess of 325 recipes free of all usual allergens, such as milk, eggs, wheat, corn, sugar and yeast. Then you will find cookbooks that are more targeted to certain allergens, like eggs, gluten or milk.
Sometimes children with food allergies begin to feel depressed or ostracized when other kids tease them for being unable to eat certain foods. It's important that you sit down with your child and talk about these feelings. A good way to get into a discussion is to read one of the books written about food allergies. Nicole Smith is the author of several helpful children's food allergy books, such as Allie the Allergic Elephant: A Children's Story of Peanut Allergies; Cody the Allergic Cow: A Children's Story of Milk Allergies; and Chad the Allergic Chipmunk: A Children's Story of Nut Allergies. For other wonderful books to go over with your child, please visit www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/books-child.html. By reading these books, children will learn how to avoid dangerous situations and stay safe just like their favorite characters in these memorable stories.
If you have children with food allergies, then you must be prepared at all times to prevent a food allergy reaction. This can be tricky when you're out and about, but there are some helpful online tools and mobile phone apps to help you. For instance the "Allergy Companion No Peanut" for the iPhone and iPod Touch will list menu items to avoid at over 50 major restaurants in the U.S. (www.allergycompanion.com). Similarly, you can check fast food restaurants at www.allergyfreepassport.com. Another iPhone/iPod app is the "Pocket First Aid & CPR from Jive Media," which provides you with American Heart Association content and lets you store medical contact information (www.jive.me/pocketaid). A similar (paid) program is Polka Close Call/My Emergency Information, which allows you to store detailed medical information and communicate with responders even if you can't talk (www.blog.polka.com/?p=170). You can search a number of foods and get updated alerts from Food Content Alerts at www.foodcontentalerts.com.
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Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010 Time: 9:53 AM
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