AIBU to be pissed off that the head teacher has banned nutella in the school for one child?

[eddiejo]

The story.... one boy (hers) has allergy to nuts so now nutella is banned . I totally understand the whole anaphlaxis thing but as mum to year 1 boy with multiple food allergies - i would never expect the rest of the school to stop eating what he is allergic to.

Nutella was one of the few spreads which he could eat and made the bread edible. not healthy I know but more important to get energy in him.

What do you think?

YABU. Nutella accidently comes into contact with that child = that child has anaphlactic (sp) shock, is hospitalised or possibly dies.

I would think any parent would be willing to give up a farkin sandwich spread if it could kill my child.

Nob.

Ouch. How bitchy is this thread

Ok, so it's only Nutella in the OP's case, but should schools ban every food that a child is allergic too? As someone already said, what about dairy? Certain fruit?

What happens if a child eats something that contains nuts for breakfast then goes to school, surely there is still a risk?

How far should schools go?

colditz - The onus of proof is on you, because you are the one who made the claim "3rd world countries rarely report serious allergies because mums there think their kids choke".

While waiting for your proof for this claim, here is why it is wrong:

First of all, anaphylactic shock is a violent and unique event which a mother is extremely unlikely to confuse with choking on food.

Second, it is a known fact that developing world has much less occurrence of life threatening allergies, like food allergies and asthma. This is not because there is insufficient diagnosis. In places like Indonesia and Thailand where peanuts are a staple, peanut allergies are unheard of, and these places are rarely the sub-saharan Live Aid territory you are thinking of.

There are several theories for why, like the extreme sanitisation of the Western world (antiseptic soap, bleach in house cleaning products, etc), and differences in preparation/conservation of certain foods.

Look it up if you are interested, I'm sure you will find loads of information on the subject that will lead you away from the misconception that food allergies are said to be low in the developing world because people there think their dead children just choked on a piece of food.

what's the legal requirement on this?

Um cotedazur, I knew my DS was moderately allergic to milk as it made his eczema flare up.

When I gave him a lick of a bit of ice cream and he started choking and drooling I was totally perplexed. He got over it and it was not until I next gave him milk (instructed to) and the same thing happened that I realised it was a violent allergic reaction.

It took a paediatrician to explain to me what had happened - his oesophagus had swollen shut with the allergic reaction. His windpipe was still open which is why he didn't die, but he couldn't swallow his saliva, hence the choking. It is very lucky that his windpipe didn't close. If it had, and he had been eating something hard I would almost certainly have assumed he had choked.

meaning that if a school says no nutella by means of a letter home to parents & parent/carer/ someone makes a nutella sandwich & it goes to school & another child has an allergic reaction could that person be taken to court?

oooo cupsoftea, you are brave going down this route

Why BBF? If I had a child with life threatening allergies to a food then I'd want to know if the school, by banning any of the product crossing the boundary, was actually in a position to ban it. imho Parents would actually have to sign a piece of paper, stating that they understood & accepted the ban & also had been fully informed & understood what to not bring into the school, for it to be actually enforcable.

If we're talking extreme cases. Not just avoiding sharing food, but dying because someone breathed nearby who'd had cereal that morning which contained nuts then I'd want to ask why they were bringing them into the school in the first place? that sounds insanely risky and surely they'd be funding and other arrangements for homeschool or something.

cupsoftea.. I see what you mean now, I agree you are more likely to comply if under a contract of responsibility so to speak. Kids who are highly allergic live with the risk of meeting someone who has eaten nuts at every turn, all we can do is try to elliminate the obvious and the accomplishable (sp?) and be wise enough to know the whole world does not rotate around your child just because the issue is the center of your every waking moment.

Must be hard for the parents to have to trust others - many people don't read school letters or they get lost on the way home.

My observation of a brother reacting to walnuts and my own mother (not exceptionally well educated) thinking he was choking, until my auntie (Canadian and a lot better educated, although certainly no more clever) stepped in and stopped her giving him the heimlich maneovre was what led me to believe that mothers may believe their children are choking.

Female literacy rates in Indonesia and Malaysia stand at 80 - 85%, compared to 99% in the UK. It's a good rate, you're right, its not the heartbreaking 9.7% of Niger - but it is lower.

There probably are many other factors.

For example I would be interested to see the genetic makeup of the average peanut allergic person, compared with the rest of the uk populace and compared with the Malaysian populace. I am sure that a diet very heavy in peanuts would soon weed out the atopic genes - if the diet isn't preventing the allergy itself.

I would also like to see if a pregnancy diet of daily peanuts (averaged over a population) would prevent a peanut allergy developing - however this would be difficult, as food allergies are belived to have a genetic component and as such many pregnant women who would otherwise be prone to having a baby with food allergies will AVOID allergens, to try to prevent the allergies. People don't like experimenting on pregnant women, they get so darned stroppy.

Late as usual.

But in my humble YANBU.

Hammer

Nut (no pun intended)

Come to mind.

If the allergy is so severe that the child may die following contact, the school has a positive obligation under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (right to life) to ensure that it does everything within its power to prevent this happening.

It is not a question of whether it is reasonable to ban 'Nutella'- they are under a legal obligation.

"everything within its power" probably limits it quite a bit.

Smug- there is a study on allergy prone toddlers atm to see if a weekly dose of peanuts is likely to make them allergic to peanuts or not. There is no evidence that eating peanuts in pregnancy either causes or prevents peanut allergy. However, this is just information from the mothers of allergic children, not a proper controlled study.
There is evidence that people from different parts of the world are prone to different allergens. Rice allergy is huge in china but is virtually unheard of here. This isn't because british mother assume their children choked to death on rice rather than had an allergic reaction.There is a theory that european and north american children are particularly allergy prone due to a lack of fermented food in their diet which means that their gut bacteria have a different make up to children in developing countries.

I'd be happy to omit anything from my kids lunchbox that could affect another child to the extent where they are in real danger, its no big deal to us is it?

I had never heard of rice allergy!

My god, what do they fill up on? Wheat noodles I spose.

Caucasian adult lactose intolerance runs much lower than other races - it just does. I wonder if the peanut allergy thing works that way

My point about the peanut/nut choking thing is that children DO choke on nuts, and without an autopsy, which in a developing country would be hard to come by, how would you tell the difference?

I didn't think you could choke on rice. (maybe you can)

with regards to the OP, if her complaint genuinely is that the head has showed unprofessional favouritism because it is her own child in question, then the governors are the ones to approach. Not saying she should, just saying thats how these things run.

if its just that she feels put out herself because she cannot find something else to feed DC, that is BU, even with multiple allergies there must still be options that do not involve nutella. or does DC eat this 3 times a day?

to be fair to the OP, the schools approach seems a bit hit and miss, ie one specific product banned not all nuts/products - perhaps the head just does not approve of the nutella from a health/nutrition POV, who knows?

Does her LEA have guidelines on allergies I wonder?

My sister is severely allergic to peanuts, coming out of the blue in her 20's. However, i now believe this was caused by her having ABIDEC vitamin drops to compensate for her being a fussy eater as a toddler. the vitamin A source in these drops contained peanut oil.

did you know some of the fortified with vitamins milks you can buy contain nut oils as the carrier? how many peopl will miss the small print on that?

Have allergic kids myself,know what a minefield it is, do not personally think it is BU for school to ban nuts

colditz westerners tend to have more allergic reactions to peanuts because we roast them which makes them more allergenic. In the far east they tend to eat them raw or boiled which is probably why there are less allergies to peanuts.

For some reason celery allergy is less common in Uk but the most common allergy in France, Germany and Switzerland, same with mustard allergy.

THIS IS WRITTEN ONE OF THE COORDINATORS OF THE ANAPHYLAXIS CAMPAIGN TANYA WRIGHT In her book FOOD ALLERGIES page 48 please look
I will paraphrase

BANNING FOODS FROM SCHOOL THE DISADVANTAGES

It creates a false sense of security

Some parents may see this as an imposition

For a complete ban everyone needs to read food lables which is unrealistic and unachievable

If all parents of children with a severe food allergy requested a food ban then it would leave a very limited diet for everyone else and leave them all confused and irate!

It may leave the child stigmatised

Banning a food from school creates a false situation and does not teach the child to live with its allergies, when they eventually leave school they are unprepared for the real world.

As a mum with a child with nut and seed allergies this makes so much more sense to me and why I have never asked for nuts and seeds to be banned.

This is also from the anaphylaxis campaign website in their advice for schools

"Some schools choose to enforce 'nut bans', where it is forbidden for any pupil to bring the problem food to school. However, without wishing to undermine the good intentions of any school that has introduced this kind of rule, the Anaphylaxis Campaign believes there are several pitfalls in this approach:
. It would be impossible to provide an absolute guarantee that the school would be truly nut-free. Without going through pupils' bags and pockets every day, you couldn't be sure that a child hasn't got a Snickers bar tucked away. The danger is that allergic children may be led into a false sense of security.

1. If you ban peanuts, what happens when other parents say they want similar policies implemented in relation to milk, egg, sesame, fish, fresh fruit and latex? One day other serious food allergies may emerge as being as common as peanut.

1. Parents who demand nut-free zones may risk possible confrontation with other parents. In such an atmosphere, the risks may actually increase.

1. There is a strong case for arguing that food-allergic children will gain a better awareness of their allergies, and learn avoidance strategies, if they move in an environment where allergens may turn up unexpectedly. If they are trained to be vigilant, their growing awareness may pay dividends one day when, for example, a friend offers them a biscuit at a party. If they are used to a nut-free environment, they may take the biscuit without thinking."

Again, I'm a bit late on this. I just wanted to say that Balloon slayer's original post was really eloquent and says what I feel better than I could although I will try.

My DS is allergic to milk. I don't think he's anaphylactic (there is no way to confirm for sure) but he is allergic just to the touch of milk, he doesn't have to eat it. It means he will react if he touches a drop of milk spilt on a table.

He has just started nursery and I am so upset/terrified about what could happen to him. Dairy is a central part of the diet of young children and I don't feel I could ask the nursery to ban it. But the worry I have every time my phone rings is just so painful.

My point, I guess, is its not reasonable or unreasonable. Allergies are terrifying, not properly understood even by the experts and I am coming to realise that they have a significant detrimental impact on the lives of those affected, both the sufferer, their own families and even the wider community. This applies to peanut allergy, tree nut allergy, milk allergy... some foods may be easier to exclude but all allergies can be fatal in severe cases. There are no winners here.

In neighbouring school to ours teachers are not even allowed nuts or food which could contain nuts in the staffroom. In our school we try to be careful and all have frequent updates on how to use an epipen. Probably a more reasonable attitude.

I have analphactic reactions to shellfish. I go into a really terrifying state, I first go all scarlet, then my face and lips and eyes swell up, my blood pressure drops and I feel so tired and start hallucinating all within a few minutes. If I don't have an epipen injection within a few minutes I could die. It has only happened a few times and luckily I have been fine every time. The worst time, I was luckily just outside a hospital.

I have to make sure in restaurants that there are no hidden ingredients but the frightening thing is that I never come into contact with shellfish, never touch it etc. The times that it has happened have been when I have walked passed someone, or touched someone who must have eaten it.