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?

Wow that’s an interesting article. I think I will start weaning dc 2 at 4 months then and see if it makes a difference. I stuck to the 6month guidelines with dc1.

I think think there has always been allergies, it's just that they are recognised better.

In my family there is a strong run of asthma and allergies and intolerences - especially food intolerences that cause d&v. My great Gran, and great-great Gran didn't lose any children to "allergies", but between them they lost 6 children to Marasmus which was basically children who were massively underweight despite being fed. I'd put money on them having the same allergies and intolerences as still are common.

Same with the other 3 children they lost between them to "silent pneumonia" (my gr-gran said they just died for no reason) are probably in a similar situation to the 3 modern generation babies who died of cot death, as it also seems to run in families often.

It’s not just nowadays. My husbands best friend as a child died aged 11 due to very similar allergies to the children in the programme. This was in the nineties.

Silent pneumonia is a real illness and was common before antibiotics.

Also marasmus is basically starvation. More commonly caused by poverty.

I'm surprised by the people who are saying that peanut butter wasn't available in the '60s and '70s. We always had a jar of Sunpat crunchy peanut butter on the go - I used to get home from school ravenous (because I couldn't eat the revolting school dinners!) and make myself a doorstep-sized peanut butter sandwich! All my friends used to eat PB too, it was a favourite sandwich filler. This was during my childhood, 1963 till 1976.

We also used to eat tree nuts. I remember harvesting hazel nuts from trees when out walking. Cob nuts were a favourite too - and widely available in greengrocers in early autumn. Then at Christmas we had dried nuts of many varieties.

So, I grew up with nuts. I remember eating loads of nuts in the 3 months before my first DS was born. DS has a severe nut allergy, which we discovered when he was 3 (although he wasn't issued with epipens till he was 14).

It's true that nut allergy was not very well known until comparatively recently. In the late '90s when we were flying to the USA, I informed the airline that DS was allergic to nuts and needed a completely nut-free meal. I was glad that i had the foresight to take sandwiches and other snacks in my hand luggage, because when the meals were served, DS was given the same as everyone else. I asked if any nuts or nut oils had been used in it and they didn't know! They said they had never heard of anyone being allergic to nuts (I think they thought I was making a fuss about nothing). So DS didn't eat any of the airline food.

I have always wondered whether I may have caused DS's allergy by eating nuts when pregnant.

Did you live in Britain? And if you did, did you live somewhere more cosmopolitan?
I can remember not being able to find garlic in Betsy Coed in the 80s.

I definitely had peanut butter growing up in the 1970s - London and Sussex.

London doesn't surprise me. When I loved there as an adult I was surprised at the things you could get there, that you couldn't et back home.

But also Sussex

Depends where in Sussex. Many places in Sussex have for ages been places for Londoners to move when they want to live in the countryside. Part of my family is from there, and the village the family lived in for generations, has hardly any people living there now whose family have been there for generations. They all had to move to cheaper but less sought after places.

Lower breast feeding rates??!!
Tell that to my son, who BF for two years next time he goes into anaphylaxis!

I lived in a rural market town during the 70's and DM used to buy peanut butter in either the Co-op or Civils. it really wasn't exotic. Peanuts were also a staple food at kids parties, something that just doesn't happen now.

Agree peanuts, or monkey nuts as we used to call them, were seen as kids food.
Maybe I lived somewhere very backward in terms of food then.

If you breast fed then surely baby is exposed to egg nuts etc before weaning. So waiting til 6 months to wean wouldn't be an issue ?!

If you breast fed then surely baby is exposed to egg nuts etc before weaning. So waiting til 6 months to wean wouldn't be an issue ?!

Not necessarily. DS was EBF until he was 6 months, we had no idea he had any allergies until he had cheese at 7 months and had a massive eczema flare up and a swollen lip. Same with egg which he had a week or so later.

It's not as simple as 'you BF you don't get allergies, you FF you don't'. DS had food allergies as an infant and environmental ones now. DH's family all have atopic disease including BIL who had CMPA as an infant (as was considered good practice in the 70s in MILs home country he was BF for about 2 months then formula was introduced). DS was also a late preemie so again, more likely to have atopic disease. EBF made the CMPA easier to identify because he didn't react to my milk but with that history his allergies are not a surprise.