School rules and nuts

[Bagsalot]

My daughter is 11 yesterday was her birthday. She took an asda tray bake to school with her. She wasn't allowed to share it as apparently some where on the box it says may contain nuts. This has never been an issue before. Today an email came out stating no nuts or seeds allowed in school including lunchboxes. My daughter's in year 6 has been at the school since nursery age 2, this has never been mentioned. I've asked to see the risk assessment. I feel it's an unreasonable policy but possibly I'm being unreasonable

In a school setting, children can behave in unpredictable and often messy ways. Children rub hands on their clothing, touch desks and furniture and door handles with greasy hands, hold hands together, and they often share pencils, markers, etc.

My point really was if you wouldn't risk offering a 'may contain...' food face to face, why would you risk it at a little remove?

I know several parents of children who have nut allergies, and the children too and they are never complacent.

www.nutmums.com/why-we-avoid-products-labelled-may-contain-nuts/
Look, it's Nutmums!!

This blogger disagrees wrt package warnings, citing an Irish study and also University of Nebraska study on 'may contain...' risk, warnings, and actual presence of allergens in products.

@mathanxiety I don't think that the US experience is helpful. I eat "may contain" products in the EU. I wouldn't in the US, for obvious reasons (laxer food safety law and a much bigger peanut eating culture).

As for nutmums, the Irish study she links to says:

"Quantitative risk assessment, based on the known distribution of individual threshold doses for peanut, indicates that only a very small percentage of the peanut-allergic population would be likely to experience an allergic reaction to those products while the majority of products with advisory labels appear safe for the peanut-allergic population."

Which supports the idea that risk-assessment should be individual.

Note also that 15-20 years ago, "may contain" products were a genuine risk but food industry practices in Europe have improved dramatically.

Our school is nut free and we all support that. It's just not worth the risk.

My problem is with the manufacturers. They seem to be labelling lots of things as 'may contain nuts' when they probably don't. It should be yes or no! Surely the makers know what's in their products?!

It’s v difficult our school is nut, kiwi and strawberry free. Fair enough it is well published so non of these things get taken into school. But most things say “may contain traces of nuts” where produced in a factory where there are nuts. I suspect many post school snacks brought into the playground are like this. I’d be annoyed themschool hadn’t published this but would prob wrap up the pieces of cake and give directly to the parents. Feel sorry for the child
Who had such a severe reaction to dairy. How on earth can you cope
With that, surely you can never go anywhere public?

I do apologise for children like my son who are so selfish as to have a nut allergy that could kill him getting in the way of your child having cake. How disgustingly selfish of him and others.

I think it's a good policy, my childrens school has the same policy in place and speaking as someone who has seen a person have anaphylactic reaction you are bu

Confusedmum do you let your child eat dairy and egg and sesame at school? Why? They are just as likely as peanuts to give a child anaphylaxis. So my child has to take the risk, but yours doesn't? What's the difference?

It must be utterly terrifying to have a severe allergy or a child with one, especially with the epi pen shortage . I’d have no problem adhering to the no but ban but as others have said, what do you do about the other allergies? It must be so hard. It does seem much harder to be banning other food groups. A few posters have talked about dairy bans in nursery and that just seems hard work given lots of the kids will be on milk.

Realistically you can't ban dairy or egg, but school can minimise risk e.g. no eating in the classroom, no sharing food, all children in that class do enforced hand washing after break and lunch.

Our school is nut free

It isn't, and statements like this put allergic children at risk.

Who had such a severe reaction to dairy. How on earth can you cope
With that, surely you can never go anywhere public?

My oldest had a severe dairy allergy. You supervise young children closely around food, and you make sure that older children know how to minimise risk.

No non-controlled environment is ever free of food allergens however much parents and teachers would like to think it is.

Allergic children, their parents and their carers (including teachers who are in loco parentis) have to learn risk-minimising behaviour and not rely on other parents to do it for them.

He doesn't eat sesame or raw egg no. He has multiple food allergies, all of which could potentially be lethal so trust me when I say the fact that most schools only ban nuts I'm being understanding as it is.
I just get so sick as I'm sure others do of the almost termly messages on school mum's groups and in the playground about how mean the school are because some inconsiderate kid has an allergy. I've seen mum's with kids with allergies apologise before! Ridiculous! It's not like we want our kids having an allergy.
If it's annoying for you over one item on one day, imagine how it is for me having to contend with it all the time, especially when it's no longer secret how poorly some foods are packaged.
My DS has been bullied in the past about his allergies because some parents will blame kids like mine rather than educate their child to show compassion.

Realistically you can't ban dairy or egg, but school can minimise risk e.g. no eating in the classroom, no sharing food, all children in that class do enforced hand washing after break and lunch.

Yes. Same for all allergens.

Though actually the risk of anaphylaxis from hand contact is minimal, sharing bottles or cutlery is far riskier.

Yep, those too. My friend's daughter does react to any trace of dairy though, from skin.

I do apologise for children like my son who are so selfish as to have a nut allergy that could kill him getting in the way of your child having cake. How disgustingly selfish of him and others.

What is the point of a post like this? No-one is saying your child should be put at risk, everyone agrees that it must be really hard to live stress free if you have a serious allergy. It's really not about cake.

The OP did NOT send in nuts, she sent a cake which said "may contain traces of". Considering that pretty much every packaged food has the "may contain traces of"disclaimer on it, and that you have no idea if someone In your child's class had nuts for breakfast today and didn't wash his hands before playing with your son, or that the bread used to make his friends sandwich "may contain traces of" and offers your son some because bread doesn't have nuts in it right? It is nearly impossible to police fully.

Behaviour and good practice such as washing hands and not sharing food is imperative. As is making sure that everyone knows about the allergy and it's implications in order to reduce to the risk to your son and others.

Blanket bans such as "no nuts" does nothing to increase awareness or vigilance. You should not be apologising for your son and children like him, you should be making sure that he and his friends practice good food hygiene and know what to do if something gets past the checks and measures.

In the midst of all the hysteria, please bear in mind that the cake which 'may contain nuts' was sent in to be shared amongst the children and was not for the child's personal consumption. If your child has a severe nut allergy, then you don't want them, as a child, with nuts in the environment. It's not rocket science.

I have to lol at 'good hygiene'. Really not much use to someone who can die if there are nuts in the environment.

I'm sorry but how did you think this was going to go lol or as I suspect you didn't think at all before posting this because you're saying people are being horrible but like so many other parents on here you asked a stupid question...AIBU?

You shouldn't need us to answer that for you, it's common sense, now ok you didn't think to look at the ingredients that fair enough but what on God's earth do you need to see a risk assessment for? The risk is that if they have children anywhere in that school with an allergy to nuts, even a trace from transference could set off a reaction or an attack. What's worse is that there may be children in the school who don't even know that they are allergic yet, my sister is 16 she only found out 2 years ago that she was allergic to nuts as Well as other things that suddenly came from nowhere. Just last week she had a sever reaction whilst on her way to school, she had eaten nothing she shouldn't have and we are still none the wiser as to what caused it, she could ve walked past someone opening a bag of nuts and unknowingly inhaled the dust, she could 've held the hand rail as she approached the train platform that someone had previously touched after eating nuts but the worst thing of all is she didn't have any of her meds with her. As I'm sure anyone can imagine she got a call from me and I was in tears pleading with her to always take her meds wherever she goes I've just lost my little boy to still birth so anymore loss right especially significant ones like my baby sister would throw me over the edge. She had changed bags the evening before and forgotten to put the pack my mum out together for her in her new bag. Luckily my mum was with her and got her medical attention as soon as was physically possible since they were in a train. Schools are responsible for the safety of our children so they MUST take every precaution possible to ensure that safety. My sister is issued with two epipens on the nhs, the school require two so after that my mum has to pay for them at £50 each and they expire too. My sister carries pens, tablet antihistamines and liquid antihistamines. So hopefully that assesses the risk levels and factors for you because quite honestly i don't see what common sense wouldn't have already told you. Ann's if it's played in your mind enough to write an entire post about it i highly doubt that "oh that's a shame" was your response to your daughter saying she couldn't hand out her cake.

Ps if all of the above wasn't enough for you, my sister also had a reaction to sausages that just a few weeks ago that my mum had checked the ingredients of and they happened to be made in a factory that also used nut ingredients for other products but not the sausages. That's how sensitive it can be. A cake would almost definitely has even minor trades of nut, being baked in the vicinity of other baked goods and nuts being a largely used component in baking

My DD is anaphylactic to dairy so yes I have some idea! It's not banned though because it's clearly too inconvenient. I don't see that a ban would make me feel safer anyway. Presumably you wouldn't actually let your nut-allergic child eat a birthday cake cooked by a random parent ('oh but I didn't know groundnut oil was made of peanuts, so sorry'?!) so it's no odds either way in terms of joining in. As someone said above, there is no such thing as a nut free school and it's very dangerous to assume that there could be.

If your child has a severe nut allergy, then you don't want them, as a child, with nuts in the environment. It's not rocket science.

It's not rocket science to work out that a nut free environment is not possible unless you ban packed lunches and snacks at school.

My friend's daughter does react to any trace of dairy though, from skin.

So did mine. But a contact skin reaction isn't usually dangerous. In the study someone referred to below, of the peanut allergic children who had controlled skin contact with peanuts, only a third had a reaction and none of them required treatment.

You know, as a multiple food allergic person, the UK for all the moral panic about nut allergy is actually one of the least safe European countries for me to eat in.

You don't even distinguish between tree nuts and peanuts which is a pretty basic distinction!

And for people who are seed allergic the UK is a fucking nightmare. Good luck buying a sandwich ...

@Bettycrook Coeliac disease is not a allergy it’s an autoimmune disease. My daughter is not allergic to gluten. Eating it will not immediately threaten her life but will cause long term damage. There is no need to ban gluten for coeliacs.

A nut allergy however can kill. Let’s remember that this is a ban in a primary school at the child in question with the allergy may only be 4 years old and not really old enough to take reasonable precautions themselves. Of course the school should be nut free. It may have been inconvenient for your child OP but that was a one day incident. The perso with the allergy will live with the ‘inconvenience’ for the rest of their life.

Our DS's allergy consultant told us (after an allergic reaction at school ended up in a hospital visit) that banning the allergen in school was counterproductive. This was secondary school though and it happened in cookery class.

The thinking now is that kids with allergies need to live in the real world and need to learn how to protect themselves in the real world. Being cocooned in an allergen free school doesn't prepare them. Felt very uncomfortable to me but I can see the point. And I accept it is probably difficult to ban all allergens. My DS is not allergic to nuts but is allergic to 4 other foods including seeds.