Child with peanut allergy and MIL

[Freshflower]

So my child has a nut allergy and is prescribed with an epipen. Dc had a serious reaction as a small baby and since then nothing. Obviously I avoid anything containing nuts and do not go anywhere near 'not suitable for nut allergy sufferers ', etc on food packaging. I believe this ensures full safety and I bring up my child with this view too. Im very meticulous when it comes to this.I understand that people do consume ' may contain ' , with no issues . My MIL will not listen to this and continually gives dc foods with these labels , saying its fine or she said "if there is a trace of anything it won't cause any serious reaction because its only a trace'. I repeat and constantly tell her to stop but she carries on and will send dc back home with these foods. Shes done it recently and then messaged if child enjoyed the chocolate , like she knows and taking the mickey ,she is controlling in other ways too and I feel she just doesn't like being told. I trust that she would not give anything with actual nuts but her not listening to my simple request to avoid these food labels of may contain, I find could potentially be dangerous and down right disrespectful. Do you think what she's doing is OK? Maybe I'm going OTT? Thanks

Thank you for your message. Yes my child has come back with half eaten food that has said may contain nuts and very fortunately has had no reaction. That's why I wondered if I was over reacting. I can see now I am not

Maybe get your child retested for the allergen … I seem to remember my niece grew out of her dairy allergy, so it guess it can happen.
Best to know, so you can stop avoiding (of carry on avoiding!) foodstuffs

Knowing this, why is she having DC unsupervised?

Absolutely YANBU. Honestly this would be one of the few situations I would seriously be contemplating whether to allow unsupervised access to my child. What kind of supposedly caring grandparent - or even human being at that tbh - would actually be so irresponsible as to risk giving a child something known that could kill them. And completely disregard your boundaries in what you have said about may contains etc. I would be very clearly stating the obvious that this is life threatening (am sure you have) and laying it on the line in no uncertain terms if you continue to you will not be seeing my child without me / a trusted other party there.

Thank you very much for your views on this. I can see that actually I am not over reacting, like some posters said it is a life or death situation, why would anyone risk this or be so casual about it. I have talked to DH , unfortunately he is annoyed with me for even suggesting she could possibly put dc in danger.
I am seriously considering keeping my child away from her or only supervised visits as it is negligence on my part too for continuing this situation. Thanks you

It does happen where they out grow. But as MIL is giving dc only 'may contain' its been very fortunate there has been no serious reaction.
Good your niece has grown out of it :)

Thank you so much for this , I can see how serious what she doing is . As child has had no reaction so far to her feeding this I thought maybe I was over reacting.

Hope you continue to be safe from your nut allergy.

My 14 year old son has a peanut allergy, we found this out when he was about 18 months old after he had a bad reaction, I had been eating peanuts and kissed him, his poor face swelled up and we had to take him to hospital.
Since then I have always checked the labels, if it says may contains nuts it is ok, if it says peanuts then I avoid that.

Thanks @Freshflower. You aren't over-reacting, you're being a good and loving parent. I hope your DH will support you. This is too serious to brush off as "it's just mum being mum!" from him. Anaphylaxis is a horrible way to go. Take care. x

She is playing Russian roulette with your child's life. At the worst they could die, just down from that would be hospital admission. It is so dangerous. Deaths from anaphylaxis are down probably due to awareness and epipens but they still end up in hospital, admissions are on the increase.

This is an interesting article by Imperial on it, although rare people do still die. So she wouldn't be let near my child unless I was there with them. I stopped FIL having Ds alone for risk of serious injury with his lax regard to safety, lots of comments about wrapping in cotton wool. You have to remember that they brought up children with no car seats and more shockingly no seat belts in the back of cars etc so some believe we as parents over-react. This is your child, I would protect them. Your Dh is more fearful of a reaction from his parents than the fact that she could hospitalise your child. That it terrifying.

From the Imperial article

"During the study period from 1998 to 2018, hospital admissions for food-induced anaphylaxis increased by 5.7% per year, or three-fold (from 1.23 to 4.04 admissions per 100,000 population per year)."

"Sixty-six deaths were reported in children, of which 14% were caused by peanuts, 9% by tree nuts and in 12% of cases, the nut could not be identified. However, the most common single cause of fatal anaphylaxis was cows’ milk, responsible for 26% of cases"

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/215053/deaths-from-food-allergy-rare-decreasing/

'MIL, please explain to me why your need to be 'right' is more important than keeping child safe from the risk of anaphylaxis which has happened before'

Why are you so keen to test this when if you get it wrong the consequences could actually be fatal?

What is making you think this is an acceptable thing to do with your grandchild?'

That's the conversation I'd be having...

Your child's life is at risk every time you both (parents) allow this woman to have your child. Keep your kid away from her entirely.
Does your husband not tell his mother to stop endangering the child's life?

Peanut or nut allergy as they are different things. If nut allergy, which ones?

It’s amazing how some people try to prove others wrong with things like this, the sort of allergies didn’t exist in my day, they did and people died, probably registered as something else, similar to there were no picky eaters years ago, well there were, and they died because they weren’t ‘picky’ they had restrictive food issues and it was labeled as failure to thrive back then, we know more now.

OP save the products she gives to your child to show your husband, then get him to read articles or watch clips of people who are killed or have life altering injuries due to consuming things they are allergic to, do this with him so he is actually seeing this. Then ask him again if he is alright with his mother trying to kill your child, if he’s dismissive you need to protect your child from these people.

@Freshflower

Does she understand that anaphylaxis can actually be fatal?

I think you need to explain to MiL that giving your DS a 'may contain' or 'processed in a facility that also processes' product is like giving him a gun that may or may not be loaded. Would she take that chance? Of course not, so she shouldn't give him anything that may or may not cause a reaction.

Would she eat something that said 'may contain poison'? I bet she wouldn't and that's basically the same. Arguably it may not contain poison and 9 times out of 10 you get lucky but the 10th it does and you don't. I prefer my food to be definitely poison free, as should she for your child.

I’m pretty amazed you managed to get an epipen after only 1 reaction! My nephew had to have allergy tests after having a few reactions before the GP would consider epipens.

Sounds like "D"H could do with coming with you to a GP appt, where he can hear first-hand from a medical professional what playing fast and loose with a peanut allergy can do to someone.

I'm a grandma and wouldn't dream of feeding a grandchild something that they were allergic to. Awful behaviour.

Absolutely this from me too.

I'm usually quite laid back about all the MIL, no contact etc. type threads on here but in this case her behaviour is appalling.

I would Google all the cases of children dying of this, especially the poor girl at pret and show her them and say to her face. How will you live with yourself WHEN you kill my child and see what she says. If it continues I'd never let her see the child again and tell every one why.

I'd also say if he does die that I would make sure she was prosecuted for murder, because that is what it would be. Feeding a child something that could kill them is attempted murder.

@Freshflower sorry but my child would be going nowhere near a grandmother who continually puts her grandchild in danger like that!!!! has your partner not read her the riot act??? if you use her for childcare while you work, then I would be looking at alternatives!!

Cousin's daughter who has a nut allergy got a reaction after eating ice cream. What happened was the scoop the shop used was basically dunked into a container of water between scooping different flavours. A minute trace of a nut went onto her scoops of ice cream.

The ice cream shop owner was very apologetic and since then bought scoops for each ice cream tub. Family have bought ice creams from the shop since and the girl had no reactions

My DD (15yo) has a peanut allergy. I think of myself as a pretty relaxed parent, but there is no way I would let my DD spend time with anyone who had such a cavalier attitude towards DD's food. The entire point of "may contain" is that it's probably going to be ok, but there's a definite chance that it won't be. It's totally different to "traces". DD is very good at managing her own allergy now, but when she was younger she would have needed me to intervene in any situation similar to the one you described.

Is mil doing childcare? If so, that needs to stop, no more unsupervised access.