Why are so many children allergic to everything now days?

[Mummysharkdoodoodoo]

Watching grand designs and the couple have two children who are allergic to most things. Even the doctor was surprised that they were so ill on such high tablets.

Why are children allergic to more and more things now days?

What causes it?

I don’t think they are

They just recognise it better and of course social media advertises it better

Before, the kids would have died and it would have been private as no social media to talk about it

I blame pollution and intensive farming methods.

Before the medical care we have now many would have died at a young age

Because our immune systems have nothing to do now we don't have worms and live in clean houses, with proper sanitation and clean water. It was a Horizon programme about the link between worms and allergies.

I'd like to know too. I wasn't allergic to anything until I got pregnant with Ds (at the age of 37) who is now 11. Then I found I can't eat a wide variety of fruits, nuts and vegetables. And I mean properly allergic!! I have wondered what is going on with food. People can't suddenly have changed!!

Oh I didn’t even think about children dying young back in the day. It makes sense. It does seem like every other child is allergic to something now days though.

Because in years gone by they died

Better detection. My son has an allergy. It's not life threatening. He just gets a bit poorly. We had hi. Tested just in case and we're quite surprised when the result was an allergy. Re pregnancy it can trigger all kinds of diseases. I developed an allergy to milk out of no where while pregnant. It's gone now.

Lower breastfeeding rates

I feel like this couple has gone abit crazy 🙈 even their door handles have been chosen for hypoallergenic stuff.

But they have a dog?

My eldest has allergies. My youngest doesnt. Personally I blame it on the antibiotics he had when he was newborn. He had a really challenging 12m yet my youngest has literally been no bother apart from being an avid sleep dodger

It might be a coincidence but the 2 children in our family with allergies were both born by cesarean.

According to a national geographic article I read: it’s because out inmune systems have fewer diseases to fight off so start over reacting to every day allergens to compensate

Who knows. My middle daughter has multiple severe allergies. I had preeclampsia with her, we lived in the middle of a city when I was pregnant, I had a placental tear and lost 3 litres of blood. Birth was a c-section. Started off breast feeding and did for a while but I had to stop due to my daughter having such severe eczema. Maybe it was one or a combination of these things? Maybe it was none if them? Maybe there is a predisposition in the family?

Hairy I vaguely remember hearing that that does have something to do with it. As in, all the gunk they get covered in when they come out the other way helps set them up, or something

Did people die years ago of allergies? I can't remember one single person in my class who had an allergy (70s)

I worry about the shit they're spraying in the atmosphere right now. I can see it every day

Three of my kids have allergies. Two of them have nut allergies - one of them has pollen allergies and another child has pollen allergies (more severe than hay fever).
I don’t know what’s going on to increase allergies.

I think it’s more than greater awareness. I breastfed these three children. I felt that I didn’t make everything too clean - I’m not houseproud enough - and yet they have severe allergies.

My only kid who doesn’t have allergies was bottle fed. I could scream when breast feeding is promoted as preventing allergies.

I read somewhere once (on MN probably ) that there is a theory that the reason peanuts are thought of as such a choking hazard is due to anaphylactic reactions in the past that were mistakenly thought to be choking.

www.grahamrook.net/OldFriends/oldfriends.html

Maybe due to lack of exposure to different things. Similar to how hayfever is more common in people who weren’t exposed to a variety of pollens as a child.

All of mine were standard births yet all of them have different allergies. Some from birth some developed later. 2 bottle fed, 2 breast fed. So far between them they have: milk allergy, milk intolerance, soap allergy, coal dust allergy, cleaning products allergy, kiwi intolerance.

But how can you not be exposed to a variety of pollens? You just need to go outside/ go to a park/ go to the country and you have pollen.

I think it’s too easy to say lack of exposure or too much exposure to an allergen.

My kids were given the same sort of food and the same outings - but one of them has no allergies and the others have a variety of allergies.

Lower breastfeeding rates

So they say but allergies have plagued people in the last three generations of my family, becoming most serious in the last two. All of us have been exclusively breastfed including my dd who has a serious nut allergy. I think it’s a mix of something in our modern lifestyle, awareness and also exposure to a much wide variety of foods and therefore allergens.

I believe it is genetic. I imagine since medications and medical knowledge is better now, more of these allergy prone children are living to child bearing age and passing on the genes responsible. The same gene also is linked to asthma and eczema.

My daughter has eczema and a milk allergy; however myself and my husband have neither. Both of my sisters have asthma, eczema and various food allergies, but my niece and nephew have neither and are perfectly healthy.
My daughter has been unlucky enough to express the gene which missed me but has been passed through my genetics, whereas my niece and nephew are lucky enough to not have; however all of them will be carriers of the allergy gene and the potential is for any of their children to be allergy prone regardless whether they show it or not themselves.

If you read old books, you have a lot of ‘delicate’ children, ‘sickly’ children, children who ‘waste away’ or ‘decline’. I often wonder how many of these were severe allergies, coeliac disease, asthma etc.