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

I fully understand why dairy isn't banned. I never even asked my children's school to ban dairy even though they both had anaphylactic reactions to contact with milk at school

But all the advice says that nuts shouldn't be banned either.

In every school there will be children with life threatening allergies to milk.

So it's just deeply irrational to be violently objecting to someone sending nuts in if you yourself send your child to school with dairy products

I have a severely allergic child (albeit to an unusual allergen). I personally do not support blanket bans. They create hysteria and scaremonger without much (if any) benefit.

What’s far more important is that school staff (and once age appropriate, the child + their peers) are trained in anaphylaxis recognisation and management. Accidents happen - blanket bans do not prevent this

These allergies can be fatal - would you want that on your conscience? If your child had this serious allergy then how would you feel about other parents knowingly sending in nuts when they’d been asked not to?

You can absolutely report it without dobbing in the other parent if you want to - just email and say you don’t want to give individual details but you know for a fact some parents are sending in cakes made with peanut butter etc and perhaps they could send out a reminder to parents about the importance of avoiding any nut ingredients etc.

Anaphylaxis UK do not recommend Nut bans

"We don’t typically recommend complete nut bans because they are very difficult to enforce and can lead to a false sense of security. Children can be allergic to other common food allergens, for example milk and egg, and it would be impossible to ban them all. We recommend a whole school allergy awareness approach of all allergens. Settings should carry out an individual risk assessment for any child with an allergy and put appropriate measures in place to reduce the risks as far as possible. Every setting is different, but this may include extra cleaning measures or adjustments of the timings and locations of meals and snacks if necessary."

Also in canada they did research and there more hospitalisations from nut free schools than those that didnt ban nuts.

You have misunderstood. I am saying that if you have or have not been asked to avoid an allergen matters. I am not saying dairy allergies are not dangerous and equally worthy of our concern. If a school asked me to avoid dairy in lunches for a child’s safety, I would do that. If you haven’t been asked, you can’t take action.

Not really, in a school that bans nuts but does not ban dairy. Dairy is a whole food group and it's often recommended in a lunchbox for a primary aged child.

We were given an egg ban for a few years when there was an egg allergic child at our school. It was a mess. Some people removed actual eggs, some also removed mayo from sandwiches, pasta salads etc but others carried on using it, and the school itself served quiche.

You can let school know OP but it's quite possible it'll result in the school falling in line with Allergy UK's recommendation of removing the nut ban. Our school has just done exactly that.

No there isn’t. Not if there’s a dairy allergic child in the school then there should be a blanket ban on dairy if the school are going to stick to a blanket ban on nuts. You can’t have it both ways. Either allergies are serious and to be taken seriously thus meaning the banning of all allergens, or they’re not. You can’t just ban one because it’s easy and leave the other to take their chance because you know that it’s neither reasonable nor possible to ban the other.

If We had a post on here saying that a parent had sent in a sandwich which contained butter instead of spread and should they report them everyone would be saying that banning dairy was not realistic. And they’re right.

And while banning nuts is possible, it’s just a stunt really when the same schools will happily allow dairy which causes more deaths than nuts.

The same parents here who are saying that by sending your child into school with nut based products are going to cause the death of a child clearly don’t prescribe the same sentiment to them sending bread and butter in with their child. Why is that?

This is up there with people in lockdown accusing those going out for milk of murder because they went to the shops, I think we had such terms then as “you clearly don’t mind then if people die because two of you went out instead of one,”

Nuts are the only thing that ever get bans. DCuz has an egg allergy, (she's actually a bit better with it now), when she was a kid she had severe reactions/was hospitalised and nothing was ever banned. She works in a school now and although she hasnt been hospitalised since being a child, her pupils can still eat mayo etc for lunch.

Not everyone in a school community has in depth knowledge of who the allergic child is or the severity or nuance of their allergy. If a ban is in place, respect it.

Will fully come clean here. I am an allergy parent (DD has a severe pea allergy) and knowingly flouted the nut ban when she was at school with PB sandwiches, Nutella etc..

The girl in question with the peanut allergy (tiny prep school where everyone knew everybody) was much older, knew to avoid her allergens and was never in close contact with DD. There wasn’t a justifiable risk and I don’t regret it.

But we haven’t been told not to bring in dairy 🤔

Absolutely not ok to take something containing peanuts in to school!

Objectively there isn't though, once you've had it explained to you that milk is just as dangerous as nuts and that there will be children with life threatening milk allergies in every primary school

Again there’s a huge difference in sending in dairy in a lunch box when you have not been asked to avoid this and knowingly flouting a ban on nuts.

I would speak to school, they will probably send a blanket note along the lines of we have noticed some children bringing food containing nuts, we have server allergies please stop. We have had a few like this, so she won’t necessarily link it to you.

Except this alleged ‘common sense’ is actually totally incorrect…

Allergies are pretty common. My children have nut allergies (as well as their milk allergies) and there's always at least one other child in their class with nut allergies and usually at least one other child with milk allergies

Unless you were governor of tiny schools it's highly unlikely there were no children with allergies

And yet those same smugly "decent " parents are probably sending little Johnny into school with a cheese sandwich/yoghurt ...

There will be children with life threatening allergies to milk in every single primary school

Quite a number of children have died from exposure to milk at primary school

Both my children and many others on this thread have had children who have had to use their EpiPens due to exposure to milk at primary school

So anyone smugly congratulating themselves on not sending in nuts while cheerily wrapping up a lunch stuffed with dairy products needs a head wobble

Except that’s not always the case. I’ve known plenty of schools who are “nut free” just because. No allergies, I was a governor at one, and they did it because it looks good on their ofsted report and to potential parents.

This is why people don’t take these bans seriously. They’re generally not there to protect a specific child, they’re there to make the school look good.

Except that nuts aren’t more likely to be fatal, as far more children die from dairy allergy reactions.

I have had children in my classes who have very, very severe allergies to nuts ... multiple epi pens in school level allergies.

Please report her.

I wouldn’t mind a nut free school because it’s easy not to eat nuts.

But a dairy free or gluten free or … you could go on. That’s a huge problem if you have children in a large school covering that spectrum. I think I would have to say no packed lunch and just go with school dinners but what would the school actually serve!

Now I think about it perhaps meat and 2 veg?

Yes, report it. My friend's little girl has a peanut allergy, and has ended up in hospital not once but twice because people in her class have ignored the rules. One of the children actually brought a peanut protein bar and chased her with it (this wasn't one of the occasions she was actually harmed). People find it funny!

If the school is nut-free, they clearly present a life-threatening risk to one or more children.

Imagine being the parent of such a child and having to rely on the good will of other parents to keep your child safe/

Most decent parents will cast an eye over the ingredients of the food they put in to their kids lunches to check for safety and sometimes nuts may sneak in by omission to check thoroughly, or ignorance of nut ingredients, but imagine being so fucking entitled that you'd actually make something for your kid to take in and wilfully select ingredients that are fatal. FFS what a psychopath.

You should have a polite, but firm word with the mum.

My DN has a nut allergy and we as a family do not eat nuts on the day we see her. Because we love her!