Allergies
Will My Baby Have Allergies?
Eczema, food allergies, respiratory allergies (like hay fever), and asthma are related conditions, and they are on the rise.
As many as 8% of all children — and about 6% of children younger than age 2 — suffer from food allergies.
Although genetics play a role, things that happen in the first few months of life, and even before birth, affect a baby’s allergy risk.
PraewBlackWhile/iStock via Getty ImagesAllergies are common at all ages, including during infancy. Sometimes allergies are just a nuisance, but other times they can cause significant problems. Occasionally they can lead to life-threatening reactions.
Babies aren’t born with allergies, but they do inherit a risk for allergic disease from their parents. We’re just starting to understand how things that happen in the first few months of life might affect whether a baby has allergies — or could develop allergies later.
Keep reading to find out if your baby is likely to develop allergies, and what you can do to help stop allergies from getting started.
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Yes, babies can get allergies, although most babies don’t. And it’s impossible to predict exactly what a baby will be allergic to.
The most common allergy babies get is to cow’s milk. Cow’s milk is an ingredient in many foods, including some types of baby formula. Egg, peanuts, wheat, and soy are other common food allergies in babies.
Eczema is the most common allergy symptom in babies. Eczema causes dry, red, irritated skin on the face, belly, or in the diaper area. In some infants, eczema can be severe.
Cow’s milk allergy is also linked to digestive problems, which might cause blood to show up in a baby’s poop. It can interfere with digestion and keep a baby from growing or gaining weight.
Occasionally babies can have more severe allergic reactions. Swelling, wheezing, repeated vomiting, and difficulty breathing, especially if they get worse quickly, could be signs of an emergency.
Yes, but the tests are difficult to do, and they aren’t always needed.
Blood tests and skin tests, which are used to test for allergies in older children and adults, don’t tend to work as well in babies. Plus, the results change over time. When it comes to allergies, whether a baby shows symptoms is more important than the results of any test.
If you think your baby might have an allergy, the best way to tell is to remove the chemical, food, or product you’re worried about and see if the symptoms go away.
If it could be a food allergy, and the baby is breastfeeding, this means also removing that food from the breastfeeding parent’s diet.
It’s really important that babies — and breastfeeding parents — eat a balanced diet. Removing milk, nuts, and other sources of nutrition can be dangerous, and it can put a baby (or a breastfeeding parent) at risk for vitamin deficiencies or malnutrition.
If your baby has symptoms of an allergy, but you don’t know what the cause is, you’ll want to work with your baby’s healthcare provider to eliminate possible causes one at a time. If eliminating one thing doesn’t stop your baby’s symptoms, don’t keep eliminating it. Add it back in and try eliminating something else.
For example, if your baby has eczema, you can try stopping cow’s milk to see if it gets better. If you don’t see any difference after 2 weeks, switch your focus to a different food, like eggs, soy, or peanuts.
If you do find an allergy, take heart. It is common for babies to outgrow food allergies. In fact, about half of children with cow’s milk allergy will outgrow it by age 5, and nearly 3 out of 4 kids will outgrow it by the time they reach adolescence. It is less common for children to outgrow peanut or tree nut allergies.
Allergies during infancy are one thing. Allergies that last throughout life can be a bigger deal. As it turns out, a child’s early life can help predict, and sometimes even affect, their chances of getting allergies later on.
It’s likely that a risk for allergies is programmed into a baby’s DNA before they are born. When a baby is born into a family of people who suffer from asthma, wheezing, eczema, hay fever, or food allergy, that’s a sign the baby probably carries a genetic risk for allergies.
Although genetics can set a baby up for allergies, they aren’t the whole picture. It takes other experiences to get allergies started.
Allergies are caused by the immune system, and a newborn’s immune system is a blank slate. It develops over time based on what the baby is exposed to in the environment.
The immune system’s job is to fight harmful germs. Allergies happen when the immune system makes a mistake and reacts strongly against something that isn’t a germ at all. Scientists are still trying to work out why some babies’ immune systems overreact in this way.
Some scientists believe that one reason babies with eczema grow up to have allergies is because of the skin itself. When a baby is exposed to a food through inflamed skin, instead of through its digestive tract, they could show a strong reaction against that food in the future.
Many scientists also believe a baby’s allergy risk is linked to their microbiome. The microbiome is a mix of healthy bacteria that live inside the gut. Some research suggests that a microbiome containing a wide variety of bacteria might help lower a baby’s allergy risk.
Research shows that the first 1,000 days after a baby is conceived — that is, the 2 years and 9 months from the start of pregnancy up until the baby’s second birthday — could be a critical time for preventing allergies.
That doesn’t mean you can control whether or not your baby will develop allergies. After all, you can’t change their genetics. And there are still many factors at play that we don’t fully understand. But there are a few things you can do.
Food exposures seem to be important in allergy development. Even before your baby is born, diet makes a difference.
One study shows that eating plenty of vegetables and yogurt during pregnancy can lower a baby’s allergy risk. Processed foods, fried foods, starchy foods, and large amounts of meat seem to raise a baby’s risk for allergies. In general, eating a wide variety of foods is a good idea.
If possible, feed a baby breast milk until they are 4 to 6 months old. Although the link between breastfeeding and allergies is still being worked out, breastfeeding has other benefits. If you’re breastfeeding, don’t avoid peanuts or other allergy-related foods. Keep your own diet varied.
When babies are exposed to peanuts early in life, they are less likely to be allergic to peanuts later. This might seem confusing, because it’s very different from old advice suggesting that young children should avoid peanuts. But as it turns out, peanut-containing foods — offered in an infant-safe way — actually lower the risk of allergy.
The same is true for eggs. According to American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines, both peanuts and eggs should be started when a baby is 4 to 6 months old and continued regularly after that. The guidelines recommend feeding babies a wide variety of different foods in the first year of life.
When scientists look at large numbers of children and families, they find plenty of variables that seem to be related to allergies — even if they can’t explain exactly why. The links are intriguing, but so far we don’t know enough to be able to make strong recommendations.
Being born by cesarean section
Being exposed to cigarette smoke
Living in an area with high levels of air pollution
Needing antibiotics for a bacterial infection during early life
Being born to someone who needed antibiotics for a bacterial infection during pregnancy
Needing acid-suppressing medication (such as H2 blockers or proton-pump inhibitors) for gastroesophageal reflux during early life
Being born vaginally
Growing up in a large family
Having pets at home
Living on a farm
Allergies can be a big deal, especially during infancy. It seems likely that a baby’s early life will impact its allergy risk in the future. There are a few steps parents can take to reduce this risk, but there are still many things we don’t know, and factors — like genetics — that parents don’t have the power to change. Scientists are working on gaining a better understanding of how allergies get started, which will give us more tools to prevent them.
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