Strollerderby : food allergies

Got a Sick Child? Go Online

JeanneSager — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:31:00 GMT

When I first read that more parents are going online after their kids get sick, I had thoughts of hundreds of graduates of Google University picking fights with the med. school grads trying to take care of their kids.

Good news: that's not what this story is about.

Not that parents can't find some good quality health information online. But there's enough fearmongering and misinformation online to make you never trust an MD again.

But a recent post over at the U.S. News and World Report parenting blog by Nancy Shute pointed to a phenomena that's been widely used, and yet widely overlooked: the online patient support group. Especially important for parents who don't want to leave their kids' hospital bedsides or have little time for nighttime support group meetings (and no money for a sitter when it's all going to the medical bills), online support groups offer not only a (virtual) shoulder to cry on but a go-to source for navigating the net full of all that fearmongering and misinformation.

They've read most of it and dissected it already. Plus, they've been where you are right now, and they can help you get to where they are. As Shute points out, they've also got a stake in finding the answers you want. Your doctors may be fantastic and incredibly intelligent, but they simply don't have the same kind of time to devote to your incessant quest for knowledge.

And online, we very often can find it - and in ways that we couldn't in our hometowns. Where there might be 100 kids with food allergies at your kid's elementary school, there are hundreds of thousands of parents dealing with them over at Kids With Food Allergies. Where only one in four thousand kids is born with cystic fibrosis across the entire U.S., hundreds of their moms and dads are blogging at CysticFibrosis.com.

Of course, you can't trust it all - read any blog (even Strollerderby), and there's a tendency for parents to post medical advice (here they leave it in comments), and for other parents to say, "oh, that's interesting, I didn't know that, I'll have to do that." Where people are quicker to discount the spoken word, a possible loon in an in-the-flesh support group, something about seeing the words written on a computer screen makes parents (people in general really) more trusting.

Would you prefer an in-the-flesh support group or are you all about online?

Image: OETSG

The Problem with Testing for Food Allergies

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:30:00 GMT

It turns out you may not need to buy that expensive hypoallergenic formula after all. After years of steadily rising allergies in kids, pediatricians are beginning to acknowledge that it might be the allergy tests, not the food, that’s the problem.

The rise in false allergy diagnoses is due to a little something called modern convenience. (Speed coming at the price of accuracy? No!) Instead of administering lengthy food challenges—in which doctors watch children consume a whole variety of foods—most doctors now test for allergies by giving kids a blood test for certain antibodies. The problem is that this test falsely identifies allergies more than half of the time.

Given this finding and other studies that have linked early peanut exposure to a lower allergy risk, doctors’ groups are considering revising allergy guidelines to encourage parents to introduce high-risk foods like peanuts and shellfish earlier rather than later.

In the meantime, parents may need to start relying more heavily on the only tried-and-true allergy test there is: if your kid can eat it, he’s not allergic.

Photo: MSNBC

The iPhone: Making Parenting Easier (and Techier)

Jen Chaney — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:28:00 GMT

There are plenty of iPhone applications to occupy our kids' time and attention. But what about the apps that make parenting easier?

Brett mentioned three not too long ago, but a recent post on ParentDish -- which I discovered via Wired's Geekdad blog -- provides an extensive overview of iPhone applications that are particularly helpful to parents. So far, no one has figured out a way to make the iPhone raise our children for us. But many of these make our parenting responsibilities easier. You should definitely check out the full post, but these are the four I think new moms and dads may find most useful:

Baby Monitor: This one turns your iPhone into a baby monitor, which is such a great idea, especially for parents who frequently travel or don't want to spend extra money on another device. Word of caution: Yes, the phone will call you when the infant stirs, but that doesn't mean it's safe to leave the kid in his crib while you hit a "Quantum of Solace" matinee.

Nursing Tracker: Most moms find it challenging to keep track of how long they last nursed, which side the child fed on, etc., especially when they're operating on very little sleep. This app helps make that process easier. Sure, you could just write down the information. But this way, that feeding log can't get lost or inadvertently thrown away by a spouse who think he's being helpful by cleaning up in the nursery. Not that, like, I am speaking from experience.

Food Additives: This application is perfect for parents of children with food sensitivities and allergies. It allows you to look up information about 450-plus additives, ideal for those times in the grocery store when you're trying to make a quick decision about whether to buy or not to buy. Pretty useful for grown-ups with allergies, too.

Diaper Tracker: This is one that Brett mentioned and is perhaps the most useful of them all. My husband and I spent a ludicrous amount of time tracking our son's, um, defecation progress in those early days because he wasn't gaining enough weight. This app allows you to record all of the relevant information, right down to the description of the b.m. (Appetizing, I know.) Now, will you look like kind of an a-hole when the pediatrician asks for details about your child's bowel movements and you whip out your iPhone? Kinda. But you'll also have the most precise poop information of any parent around.

Image: codegoo.com via ParentDish.

They Say: More Children Have Allergies

Brett Singer — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:30:00 GMT

If you thought it only seemed like every other kid had allergies, it turns out that they do. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "About 3 million U.S. children have a food or digestive allergy -- an 18 percent increase over the past 10 years." The CDC also says that slightly more girls (4.1 percent) than boys (3.8 percent) have some sort of allergy.

What I wonder is how common food allergies are outside of the United States. As Chris Rock said, "We got so much food in America we're allergic to food. Allergic to food! Hungry people ain't allergic to sh*t. You think anyone in Rwanda's got a f**king lactose intolerance?!" Obviously someone in a less developed country could have an undiagnosed allergy, but it's an interesting question.

The article also doesn't say what they think the cause of this allergic increase is, or offer a theory as to whether or not these allergies were always there and just went undetected. (It does, however, mean that when that mother leaps across the table at you during a birthday party and screams, "BUT MY CHILD IS ALLERGIC!" she's probably telling the truth. But it's still OK for you to wish she'd just tell you calmly.) There's also some good news: "Most children outgrow" their allergies to food, they say.

Frankly, I wish I were allergic to Autumn Mix candy corns. That would make it a hell of a lot easier to stop eating them. Maybe.

Source: Reuters

Image: Amazon

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Peanut Butter Bullies and (Lactose) Intolerant Idiots

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:01:00 GMT

The increased number of kids with food allergies is leading to a new kind of schoolyard bully: The food taunter....

This immediately brings up a picture of kids circling around their victim with a wooden spoon covered in peanut butter and it seems funny. At first...

Bullies targeting kids with food allergies is on the rise in parts of the country and the results can be extremely serious. When some girls felt their classmate was faking a peanut allergy, they planned an entire lunch period where all the kids brought food laced with peanuts. Talk about Mean Girls.

The problem with food allergies, as they become more common, is that it does lend itself to a certain amount of taunting. Some parents seem to use their child's food allergies as a ploy to prove the fragile specialness of their beloved. On the other hand, food allergies pose real danger to many kids.

Kids are the canary in the coal mine on this issue. They bully each other to uncover the acceptability of food allergies and any other differences they perceive as weakness. But the image of children chasing each other around with cartons of milk is amusing. I can't help it.

Colorado Mom Takes on Big Food

Adrienne Martini — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Parents of kids with food allergies know a type of terror that most haven't experienced. Watching your bundle o' joy turn beet red, stop breathing and, probably, convulse is a sight it's hard to get past. And you start to organize your life so that you never have to see it again.

Lafayette, Colorado's Robyn O'Brien knows that fear. When her youngest developed an allergy to eggs, O'Brien leapt into action, marketing products, speaking out about food allergies and writing a book.

Which is great. Nothing like a little grassroots activism to spur more research into this potentially fatal condition.

But -- how far is too far? O'Brien's site, in addition to selling allergy-branded items like sticker and lunchsacks, goes one step further, linking diverse conditions like autism, ADHD and allergies to food and vaccines.

These connections offer hope to many parents looking for solutions but appear to be based on anecdotal research rather than actual scientific data. And some of it -- like O'Brien's assertions about Celiac Disease (her claim is that it's a wheat allergy) -- are just plain inaccurate.

Still, it's hard to toss out the public awareness baby with the nebulous information bathwater. O'Brien's motivations appear born of a desire to inform people about a serious problem but at times her execution raises more questions than it answers.

Allergic to Thanksgiving

Amy Kuras — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 22:41:00 GMT

If you have a kid with food allergies – or if you deal with them yourself – the Thanksgiving table can portend doom for reasons other than your weird family. My daughter has mild food allergies to odd things (strawberries fine, blueberries bad), so we haven't introduced a lot of the most common allergens like peanuts, tree nuts or shellfish. Which makes gatherings in large groups kind of scary, since my kid will eat anything that's not nailed down and doesn’t understand why she can't have stuff that's right in front of her. My family's pretty considerate about it, and some of the kids on my husband's side have life-threatening allergies so his family gatherings are allergy-safe, at least (except for the one sister in law who brought a butter pecan ice cream cake when three of the four kids present had severe nut allergies).
Allergymoms.com has a list of 12 tips to make Thanksgiving easier, and while some of it is laughably lame – send your guests a food allergy poem with cutesy rhymes about what to bring? Really? – lots of it can help you maintain peace of mind when you can’t watch your allergy-prone kid every second. For example, make sure all the appetizers and snacks set out before the meal are allergy-safe, so kids can graze at will while you're dealing with last-minute meal panic.
Because welcome as an escape from the relatives might be, hiding from them at the emergency room is no fun.