JACKSONVILLE, Fla – Babies are born ready to eat. It's one of the first things newborns do. Doctors consistently recommend that you breast feed exclusively for four to six months but when you start introducing solids parents might have more options. Dr. Brian Stephens with Little Black Bag Medicine explains the results.
"What the evidence is starting to push towards, the more you work these foods into the child's diet earlier on, after the age of six months, we believe it might reduce their chances of allergies as an adult," says Stephens.
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The study looked at 640 children. One group was told to eat Pureed peanuts as part of their diet at least three times week until five years old. The other group was not exposed. The results show less than one percent of the kids exposed had a peanut allergy compared to 17.3 percent of kids who weren't did develop allergies.
"So when a child is younger we want to expose them to these proteins as much as possible to give their body a chance to build a tolerance for it," says Stephens.
You have to do this carefully and you might want to talk with your doctor first. Dr. Stephens also says you should have a bottle of Benadryl available just in case.
"You're going to take pureed peanuts or something that has peanuts in it and you're going to give them the food at home, not in a restaurant,not in a daycare, but you're going to give them a small taste," says Stephens.
If your child doesn't develop a fever, rash, swelling, or any breathing issues you can increase the frequency of the food slowly. Dr. Stephens also points out breastfeeding naturally exposes your kids to these foods but mom has to eat them.
"If a mother is eating a broad based diet, and doing this stuff they're processing those proteins and it's getting into the child through breastmilk. The child is getting that exposure and building that tolerance very early and it's hard to beat that," says Stephens.