Symptoms of food allergy in infants can appear from a few minutes to a few hours after eating food and can occur through the baby’s skin, digestive system, and respiratory system.
The most common signs and symptoms that may occur as a result of a food allergy include:
- In addition to these symptoms.
- In more severe cases loss of consciousness can occur.
- So it is very important to pay attention to the first signs each time a new food is introduced into the baby’s diet.
Because the baby’s immune system is still immature, some foods should be avoided during the first 6 months of life as they can cause allergies, such as cow’s milk, eggs, nuts, crustaceans, soybeans, strawberries, blackberries, peaches, kiwi and gluten, which is a protein found in rye, wheat and barley and can produce food intolerance , however, honey should not be included in the diet until after the first year.
These foods should be introduced one at a time and should wait 3 to 5 days before adding another new food to understand which food is causing the allergic reaction.
In addition, during lactation, it is not recommended that the mother eat nuts and peanuts to prevent the child from developing an allergy to these foods. The pediatrician may also recommend removing the egg, fish and shellfish from the mother’s diet in cases where the parent or close relatives are allergic.
If the baby has already been given certain foods without having previously tried them, to identify food allergies, good advice is to remove certain foods from the diet, write them down in a journal and leave them out of the baby’s meals for about 5 days.If your baby’s food allergy symptoms begin to go away, it means your baby is allergic to any of these foods.
Your pediatrician may also recommend a food allergy test to determine which foods or foods you are allergic to.
A common food allergy in infants is the allergy to cow’s milk protein, which can occur even during lactation.Learn how to identify cow’s milk protein allergy.
When cow’s milk proteins pass into breast milk, breastfed babies are advised to remove cow’s milk from the mother’s diet and replace it with other calcium-rich foods, such as beans, tofu, soy milk, or Brazil nuts, so that the baby can breastfeed normally..
If the baby is fed infant formula, he or she may also suffer an allergic reaction and therefore it is necessary to opt for formulas largely hydrolyzed or based on amino acids, in which the cow protein degrades and does not induce an allergic reaction.Learn how to choose the best milk for your baby to grow healthy.