What counts as "in the family"?

[HensMum]

My DS is 10 months old. I haven't given him nuts yet as have been worried about allergies but as we are vegetarian, I would like to introduce them as soon as possible.

The guidelines say not to introduce nuts until after 3 years if there is a history of nut allergy in the family. My son's aunt had a nut allergy - is that close enough? Also, does that apply just to peanuts or is that for all nuts?

[norksinmywaistband]

Surely your sons aunt is your or DH sister so yes that is definately close enough.

Blood relations ie parents and their siblings, grandparents and all your children

[psychomum5]

if it is a blood relation it normally counts if very close (ie, sibling, parent, grandparent).

nut allergies are not passed on tho, it is the tendency to have allergies that is passed on. that is not to say it doesn;t happen tho....I am allergic to milk as are ethree of my children, but I am also allergic to apples and tree fruits which my children are not.

they just inherited the genetic code to suffer allergies.

HTH

[Mercy]

I always took it to mean parents and the siblings of parents.

For example, my brother has asthma/eczema/hayfever so I avoided nuts until dd was 5.

Iirc peanuts aren't actually nuts! Hopefully someone with more experience of this allergy will see this and be able to advise you.

[psychomum5]

mercy is right. peanuts are legumes, not nuts in the same way as almonds are.

so you could possibly try almond butter???

you can try looking up allergy families......I thinks the legume family includes pea's for EG.

[psychomum5]

Other legumes
Peanuts (arachis hypogaea) are actually legumes. A small percentage of people with peanut allergy react to other legumes, such as peas, beans and lentils. Care is needed, but most will find they can tolerate these other legumes without problems

found this info here

the link takes you to the allergy page on the anaphylaxis site

[HensMum]

Yes, it's his dad's sister.
The tendancy to allergy thing worries me as my partner has skin allergies and I have eczema. DS has also had mild eczema.

Is the avoiding until 3 thing to avoid creating an allergy, or in case they have an allergy?

[psychomum5]

I think it is to try and prevent the allergy starting up, but not 100% sure on their thinking TBH.

allergies are getting worse tho, and no-one really knows why. I wonder if they are just trying all these different methods and advice to see if it stops it, or to see if they can figure out the trigger.

tis my opinion anyway. I am hoping someone will really be able to explain as I am stumped as to how we get the allergies and how to avoid them too......especially in my case with the milk thing.