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Introducing peanuts to kids at a young age

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Parents have been told for years that children shouldn’t be fed peanuts until they’re at least 3, but a new study now says that’s too late.

Kayla Clarke introduced her daughter Savannah to peanuts early in hopes of preventing an allergy from developing later.

“I feel its better to know early rather than wait and avoid it. I’d rather know before hand.”

She’s not alone, Maggie Walsh, a mother of three, did the same.

“I believe that it helps prevent the allergy from happening by having that exposure to the peanuts”

New guidelines from the US Governments National Institute of Health suggest that if we expose our children to peanuts early we may dramatically decrease the chances of them developing the allergy. Experts here say its good news but the study was based on a high risk group.

“Most of them were able to consume peanuts without any allergy though what we’re recommending is those patients should see their doctors before parents undertake feeding them at home.”

The new guidelines put kids into 3 categories based on their level of risk for developing a peanut allergy. Children who have severe eczema and/or egg allergies can be introduced to peanut products as early as 4 months. Those kids with a moderate risk can begin to consume peanuts at 6 months and those with no risk may be fed peanut products any time.

“They identified about 600 infants, divided them in half, half were fed, half avoided and what they saw was that after 5 years of eating peanut fairly regularly, the group that was fed compared to those that weren’t had far less peanut allergies.”

Bottom line – the message has changed when it comes to prevention. The earlier you introduce your child to peanut, the better off they may be.

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