Research study needs breastfeeding mums & babes

[LadyLapsang]

Feature on Woman's Hour this morning. Kings College are conducting a study on food allergies and is looking for mums that are exclusively breastfeeding and intending to continue for the first six months. Apparently there is a link on their website.

it is the EAT study. my baby is too old for a start and:
At three months of age mothers will introduce baby rice mixed with breast milk or water. Your baby will then be started on a cow‟s milk yoghurt (2 small yoghurts eaten during a week). Subsequently your baby will have introduced in randomized order the other allergenic foods ? egg (1 egg a week), fish (20 grams/about one tablespoon a week), peanut (3 teaspoons of peanut
butter a week) and sesame (3 teaspoons of tahini ? sesame paste). Wheat (2 wheatbased breakfast cereal biscuits e.g. Weetabix a week) will be introduced last and not before four months of age, The aim is for of all foods to be being ingested in the required quantities by five months of age.

i know the advise on waiting till 6months is under debate but i wouldn't fancy starting my 3month old on that list of allergenic foods!

But the reason for the study is that the evidence for introducing allergens early leading to allergies is very patchy. An example is peanut allergy. It's entirely unheard of in Chinese and Indians, and they don't refrain giving their children peanut based product at all. (Peanut oil is used in a lot of cooking, but there's debate on where that would cause a anaphylactic shock. I think there's a similar case with gluten and Israel (or some other country).

yes, and i agree with that but i wouldn't be happy about starting at 3months. even if we should start weaning earlier than 6months, 3 months still seems a bit too early. and what if your baby did turn out to have an allergy to one of these allergens, then the study concluded that introducing them at 3months contributed to the allergy?! i don't know how they find parents willing to take the risk.

I am in the study with my DD. The support you get from the team is excellent and I didn't feel we were taking any risk at all as it is so well controlled. As a mother a DS who has multiple food allergies which are unexplained I realise that it is only through research like this can we try and understand why allergy in children is on the increase. Who knows, waiting to introduce food at 6 months and not before could actually be the reason.