AIBU to report nut-containing muffins being brought into a nut-free school?

And in the end of day it can be very hard to do a packed lunch with a ban for gluten, milk, egg, nuts or whatever your class friends' allergies are.

Even harder if you are a parent not used to deal with it. It's simply not viable. It can be so hard to work out ingredients and often også very expensive.
I am happy to collaborate and of course I don't want to harm other people but when I can't eat gluten/dairy products it can be difficult to also take a 100% ban for several other foods.

My eldest like me has a whole host of food allergies including a variety of nuts, dairy, eggs and less common things that aren’t even required to be listed in restaurants/schools etc cos they’re not the big 14. We had to teach her at 4.5 to always ask and to recognise the allergens herself because her school
did nothing to support heR despite the HV contacting them and the allergy clinic too.

I don’t agree with complete bans because it gives a false sense of security and doesn’t really help children check for themselves, also we see the fuck you parents who will
do what they want anyway. What should be necessary is proper hygiene education (lack of Hygiene is one of the biggest allergen contaminants - coughing on people/not washing hands to remove the proteins etc) Ensuring EpiPens are available just in case and teaching supervisors how to react if a severe allergy happens.

With my youngest I was called and told to pick him up to deal with a sudden allergic reaction to something we still don’t know what. Thankfully it was only an external urticaria response but in the 40 minutes it took me to get to him at school anything could’ve happened and they refused to do something to help other than a wet paper towel.

Don’t be THAT parent…

This is Natasha's story. She was hospitalised as a child from reactions to milk particles in the air

https://www.narf.org.uk/natashas-allergies

Indeed, and Karanbir Cheema died when a cheese slice was thrown at him at school.

He had an anaphylactic reaction from skin contact to cheese

i think posters dont even realise Natasha of Natasha's law wasnt allergic to peanuts or treenuts (My ds is not allergic to peanuts, just some tree nuts, and seeds mainly sesame and poppy seeds) Natasha had an anaphylactic reaction to sesame seeds in a baguette and Benedict Blythe died because he ingested cows milk. instead of the oat milk his parents sent in and the school had not realy allergy policy.

You've missed the point. Schools going nut free rather than having robust allergy training is problematic for two reasons

• nuts will creep in anyway,
• there will be many children in every school who are severely allergic to other foods. Including milk.

Schools need robust allergy policies and training rather than thinking they can tick the "sorted allergies" box by wittering on about nut bans

School rang me several times to tell my my daughter had been in the same classroom as a peanut butter sandwich. But when a cheese slice was actually thrown into her lunch box rendering her lunch inedible they didn't even think to tell me or try and sort her some replacement food. it's this utter gulf in understanding of the fact that for children with a milk allergy milk is enough exactly as hazardous as nuts that makes the current approach so frustrating

Inform them but tbh, as an allergy parent I don’t see the point in nut free schools.

my daughter is allergic to egg and peanut. She’s actually far more allergic to egg and that’s never banned and actually in way more stuff. We’ve just taught her around cross contamination, reading labels, not sharing food, which is much safer than relying on other parents, as I know many wouldn’t comply either from genuine misunderstandings or not caring.

Even we as bona fide allergy parents mess up occasionally so it’s too much to put on the general population imo.

Your last sentence is quite concerning. You do realise Epipens are not guarenteed to work/ halt the reaction. They are sometimes only able to try to delay the bodies response till they get to hospital - if that takes some time, a child can die if they have a severe allergy. People being taught to manage an allergy is not a solution for the person having contact with the allergy in the first place and could have terrible consequences.

You absolutely have to report this!

You just don’t know if there is a child or adult who’ll come into contact with it and it provokes an anaphylactic reaction. They don’t even need to ingest it to cause a reaction

There should be no dilemma when it comes to something like this

Have you contacted the school telling them that Nut bans are not recommended or are you just on here virtue signalling

More information on the new rules for schools here. I am so grateful to Benedict's parents for their campaigning
https://theallergyteam.com/schools/

I hope the new requirements will create a culture shift where people will stop thinking "nut free" is analogous will "allergy safe"

I will never forget my daughter's PTA proudly announcing that they were distributing chocolate bars at the school summer disco to ensure they were "nut free" without pausing for a moment to consider that that meant my daughter (and others like her) would surrounded by hot sweaty children coated in a sticky layer of cows milk.

The law is changing to make allergy training mandatory, following an excellent campaign by the parents of Benedict Blythe who died as a result of exposure to cows milk at school

https://www.mishcon.com/news/allergen-management-in-schools-lessons-from-the-benedict-blythe-tragedy

Just report it anonymouslu

That must have been terrifying.

As for this, there's no words.

And I had to stop someone giving them a chocolate finger biscuit because apparently chocolate isn't milk, it's chocolate.

The amount of pure ignorance around allergies is mind boggling.
I hear you about people trivialising it too, I've a milk allergy and "oh you'll be alright with a bit, won't you?"
Um, no.
Everyone should undergo allergy awareness testing or something - don't know how that would work, but they should! You'd still get idiots pretending they don't exist though sadly

I agree with the vast majority of what you’ve said.

Regarding not moving someone who’s having an anaphylactic reaction, hospitals fall down in that regard too. When I had an anaphylactic reaction to medication administered in hospital (as an outpatient) I was asked to jump from my bed and run across the room to the oxygen set-up they had. Looking it up afterwards, I was shocked to find that studies have shown medical professionals other than allergy specialists often do the wrong thing when dealing with anaphylactic reactions…at least sometimes that’s because they don’t recognise them as such. (I was also refused an epipen in the same incident, even though I asked repeatedly for one, and was treated with iv steroids instead…that’s also the wrong thing to do in every guideline there is!)

There isn’t a hierarchy of more serious allergens.
While this is very true at an individual level of course, at a population level, nuts and peanuts are statistically known to be responsible for more anaphylactic deaths of adults in the UK than all other food allergens combined.

In children, dairy and nut/peanuts are responsible for the most deaths statistically.

It’s not ‘ignorance’ to know this to be true while still recognising that individuals can be seriously allergic to almost any food.
They are the facts.

Or buy /make a nut Free one. My friend makes this and I’ve tried the sains free from and both taste great

There isn't a hierarchy of more serious allergens. Anything can be a serious allergen. We need to get away from the idea that different foods are better or worse. It's founded in ignorance

The risk of a severe reaction varies from person to person

The severity of a reaction also varies enormously in the same person on different days.
All sorts of factors interplay to affect how likely they are to have a severe reaction on a given day - stress, ill health, hormone fluctuations,. Exercise, alcohol .

Poor responses also impact the severity of the reaction. It seems very few school staff know or understand that if you suspect an allergic reaction you do not move the child. Standing/walking could dramatically exacerbate the reaction.

Since schools are routinely nut-free but never dairy-free, and since younger children are drinking milk in the classroom (are they still? Ours was funded by the EU) it makes sense that more serious reactions relate to dairy. I have no idea which is the more serious allergen, but statistics react to initiatives.

I have watched a child with an epipen and milk and egg allergy. Mostly because I can't do milk myself and know the basic rules.
It makes no sense to ban only one thing. At all.
You have to work around the child and their needs.

I don't think any of us are suggesting milk should be banned in schools

It's more pointing out the utter irrationality of judging someone for sending a cake containing nuts into school when everyone cheerily sends lunch boxes full of dairy products to school

I never broke the nut rule while living in UK for 20 years. We have had children in primary and secondary for years as we have had 3 over the years 16 years apart from 1st to 3rd child.

Relocated 6 month ago to Scandinavia - and no nuts rule (or other food rules apart from no sweets and fizzy drinks) in schools. And no harm done.

I would mind my own business.

Btw I have a milk allergy and can't have gluten. No school ever restricked the other children in my childhood.

And I expect there are children with sesame allergies in every school as well

Yes Ds is allergic to sesame and tree nuts. Just like milk, hummous is not banned either.