Vegan baby - worried about allergies

[Milsta]

Hi there -

I’m currently just 12 weeks pregnant, but planning ahead for when our first baby arrives next year!

DH and I have been vegan for about 9 and a half years now and we both have always been sure about raising our future children vegan too (until they are old enough to choose otherwise, if they ever do).

I plan to breastfeed initially, however I have been learning more and more about weaning (for when the time comes) and we are super torn about this decision. So I wondered if any other vegan families had any thought/experiences when it comes to this..

I have read quite a bit of research on how, when weaning a baby, introducing common allergens frequently and at an early stage can reduce the risk of them developing these allergies. We had always thought we’d never give our baby animal products from birth, but we are now having doubts as to whether this is a responsible choice in terms of developing allergies.

Even as long-term vegans, mistakes occasionally happen. E.g. food at a party mislabelled as ‘vegan’ when it actually contains milk. Or travelling abroad to a country that doesn’t have the same understanding of veganism and unknowingly likely consuming some level of milk or egg within a dish.
For my husband and I, we have never had any medical issue with this sort of thing making us sick, as we had grown up eating milk/eggs. Obviously we’d be unhappy about it but it was never dangerous.

However, if our baby never eats milk/eggs/etc., they are at a higher chance of developing an allergy and we may not know to be careful with these allergens.
For example, if they have never consumed milk and then one day accidentally eat something at school, a friend’s birthday party, on holiday etc., we wouldn’t have allergy medication ready because we wouldn’t know they were allergic?

I know this is probably just me overthinking things, I really hope it all makes sense, I just feel so conflicted about this. I am really passionate about veganism and hope to instil positive compassionate values in our child.. but I also don’t want to be doing something to put them at risk.

I know it is completely our choice at the end of the day, but wanted to hear some thoughts that cover both sides of the dilemma so I can make an informed decision.

Anyone else been through this and have any stories to share?

Thanks so much!

It’s not overthinking at all and it is a real concern. I work in allergy and what you describe is a real concern for your child. You should introduce them to egg, milk, shellfish and any other known allergens. Egg is especially important so the child can have vaccinations. The thing is, you need to keep these in the child’s diet for a while, not just introduce once. I’ll send you some info on peanut allergy (basically, the treatment is a slow introduction of minuscule amounts until the child can take it).

I know as vegans you can eat peanuts, it’s just a very common allergy and I wanted to use it as an example of how introduction of peanuts to those with allergies can benefit: https://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/news/daily-peanuts-help-adults-reduce-allergy

This paper from 2023 (and there are others) shows that earlier introduction of multiple allergenic foods in the first year of life was associated with lower risk of developing food allergy.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2802512?utm_source=chatgpt.com

It's helpful that the first person that has responded to your thread actually seems to have some professional knowledge in this area.

I am not an expert on allergies so won't offer an opinion. What I will say is that I think you need to get proper, expert advice on this rather than opinions from random people on MN - a lot of people on here will be ideologically opposed to raising children as vegans and that might influence their responses. Others may lack access to the latest guidance, which has undoubtedly changed over the years.

This is a decision that you don't want to get wrong, so choose your sources wisely.

Shellfish is maybe less important as it isn't a common ingredient.

Milk and egg I would definitely introduce early and often though.
Milk is actually the most common/dangerous allergy for children I believe and your child will come across it constantly - the baby with a bottle in softplay, milk at snack time in nursery. Unlike nuts it is never banned in schools.

Would you compromise and feed a vegetarian diet initially?

I would introduce allergens, yes. I made sure to give kiwi, peanut butter, eggs and yogurt regularly when weaning. I'd also want to have the option to give foods that support a full nutritional profile down the line - I used to work in community nutrition and children self select restrictive diets for lots of reasons, so personally I'd advise people to offer a good range of foods early on.

My vegan daughter has decided to include allergens during weaning. Like you she felt morally conflicted but knowing she couldn't guarantee her dc wouldn't come into contact with these food items, she decided this was safest for her peace of mind.

Feeding a baby a vegan diet should be illegal.

You silly sausage 😂

I don’t think it should be illegal but you would hope HV explain the risks

We know a family locally who have a dc with severe allergy and in the end that is something worth avoiding. Op it sounds like you are taking a really sensible approach of thinking through risks.

I know you’re planning to breastfeed, but breastfeeding doesn’t always work out. Can you get vegan baby formula? A quick google suggests that formula milk is not vegan.

Baby formula is based on cows milk and as a result
is not vegan.

lactose and milk intolerances are common and tend to either be present from birth or develop as children age into adults.

i am vegan. I raised my kids vegetarian. One is not vegan as an adult.

dairy products are quite hard to exclude from a child’s diet and can be useful.

I think you should give them as many different food groups as possible just to minimise allergies. Then once they're alright with it you can withdraw it before they get to keen on the taste?

Quite

I thought that vegan diets are dangerous for very young babies. I am sure that I read about a child dying from this diet

It really should, I could not agree more.

Please don't do this OP

They were full fruitarian if I remember rightly and barely feeding the child anything. starvation of any type is neglect 🤷🏻‍♀️

op my sister is vegan and for the reasons you list (and the logistics of getting enough nutrition into a toddler) she’s doing vegetarian through childhood with the hope they move to veganism as a free choice as they are older

Just be aware that early introduction doesn’t mean you’ll avoid them having allergies. We tried with dc 1 and 2 they reacted first time to all the common allergens and severely. For dc 3 and 4 I decided to just avoid totally what dc 1 and 2 were severely allergic to (milk egg shellfish). So they never had them at all ever. They tried them for the first time in late teens and were absolutely fine so this introduce early to avoid allergies approach doesn’t always work !

Exactly.

I'm vegan and we decided on vegetarianism (plus shellfish) for our children. For the allergy reason, and also that a vegan diet makes it's almost impossible to get all the right nutrients into babies/toddlers when they're so changeable on what they will and won't eat on a day to day basis. It requires such careful planning to get everything they need in there.

We would never risk our child's health for the sake of veganism.

I’m not an expert but DH has anaphylactic allergies so we did research how to reduce the risks etc before weaning our DDs. And I would absolutely introduce them to all the allergens, I think it would be highly irresponsible to not introduce them to milk, egg, and fish. Especially milk and egg given how common they are.

It isn’t just during weaning, in your place I would switch to a vegetarian diet while breast feeding so that your baby is exposed to multiple things from birth. So including milk and eggs etc. It is possible to get more ethical milk from cows allowed to keep their calves, if that makes it an easier shift for you - you get it delivered and freeze it.
As pps have said, egg is used in vaccination so it makes sense to expose your baby via breast milk.

No one thinks it always works. The research is that it reduces the risk, and someone being introduced to it early and still having an allergy doesn’t make the research wrong.

It may have been asked already…but is breast milk vegan? I’m confused.