every nursery should ask for medical back up when accepting a child with allergies in to school.
they need a treatment plan from gp or treating hospital ,before they can begin to write a care plan for the child. if they dont, their plans for health and safety of that child is more than shakey!
it should not be based just on parental opnion, ie, a casual comment as mother leaves, adding that little johnny cant have chocolate as he is allergic.
staff need a good grounding in allergy management, emergency care, and understanding of both ige and intolerance allergies, and this can be problemmatic.
when you are frequently short staffed, sending staff of on allergy training days can be difficult.
and of course many day nurseries have a high staff turn over, and many temp staff that come and go.
however, its possible to have a allergic child in nursery , and with a care plan.
as the mother of a multiple food allergic child, with a work history of working , running under five settings, i personaly provided my child with his own food.
however, i would have reconsiderd the idea if upon visting , that i could go and talk to the cook and witness the care of allergic children in the setting, and question the staff who deal with my child.
day nursery food is prepared by cook, handed to nursery staff, who pass food onwards in to the rooms, in total three or four pairs of hands pass the food around, so imo it can lead to mistakes.
ideas such as photo table mats can help here, so there are ways to lesson the chance of this, but there is always the possibilty of things going wrong. sometimes a sweeping virus around the nursery can detract attention to the normal protocals, and so accidental ingestion can happen, and if in the case of a vomiting bug, a reaction may not be recognised.
another reason why staff need to be allergy trained!
milk is a difficult allergy, as milk is an important part of under fives diet.
however, what i can say , is that in the case of babies, vomited up milk, or possiting milk after a formula feed, does pose less of a risk.
the milk has hit the stomach, and been partially digested, and so the milk protiens have changed.
a mild reaction still 'might' happen, and staff should anyway have a protcal in place to safely remove and clean bodily fluids, which in turn makes the risk of reaction lesson further.
so, its not impossible, it just requires more thought and care by staff and parents.
often one member of staff is in full control of preparing and feeding allergic child, this lessons the chance of mistakes with uninformed staff, so its worth asking for that in a baby and toddler room.
hope this is useful stuff, i am pretty much clued up on this subject, and often give voluntary allergy management talks to staff, and parents.