Transcript: Feeding Your Child: Common Food Allergies

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Parent Savers
Feeding Your Child: Common Food Allergies

LINDSAY STENOVEC: About thirteen percent of children in the United States have some sort of food allergy. As a new parent you may be wondering if your child is one of them. What are the most common symptoms to look for? And what are the main foods causing most of the fuzz? I’m Lindsay Stenovec, registered Dietician and Family Nutrition Specialist and today we’re breaking down the most common food allergies for children. This is Parent Savers

[Theme Music/Intro]

SUNNY GAULT: Welcome to Parent Savers, broadcasting from the birth education center of San Diego. Parent Savers is you’re online on-the-go support group for parents with infants and toddlers. And I am your guest host Sunny Gault. Thanks to all of our loyal listeners who join us every time we release a new episode.

And for those of you who like to continue our conversation on Facebook and Twitter, those will be our virtual panellists. If you want to get even more great Parent Savers content, be sure to join the Parent Savers Club. And there’s more information about that on our website. And you can also download the Parent savers app, so you can listen to all of our episodes wherever you go. In fact most of the moms and dads listen to us that way. So check that out. Now Colina our producer’s going to tell you more about our virtual panelist program.

COLINA CAROTHERS: Alright. So if you love the conversation and you’d like to get on it but you can’t be here with us in studio, you can definitely post on your Twitter, Facebook using the #parentsaversvp. We can follow up with you, include you in the conversation and make sure that all your questions get answered.

SUNNY GAULT: Wonderful. Thanks Colina. Let’s meet the parents that are joining us here in the studio and as we go around tell us if your child or children have any allergies or sensitivities that you’re aware of.

You guys know me, I’m Sunny, I am guest hosting today’s show but I’m the owner of New Mommy Media which produces Parent Savers, Preggie Pals, The Boob Group and Twin Talks. And I have four children of my own.

My oldest is four, and my middle guy’s two and I have identical twins who are almost a year old. And as far as allergies, sensitivities, nothing that I have found but I’m reserving that because my children are still pretty young so, we’ll see. Scott, what about you?

SCOTT KILIAN: Hi I’m Scott, I am a father to a four-year-old boy. And the only thing that I know for sure is that he has a pretty intense reaction to strawberries when he eats a lot of them.

SUNNY GAULT: Okay. Good to know. Alright, and Tiffany, welcome to the show.

TIFFANY CASTRO: Hi, I have a three year old and we’ve been plagued with this for quite a while. She’s got multiple allergies. The biggest problems being gluten and dairy but she’s pretty much grain free and dairy-free.

SUNNY GAULT: Wow. And Colina

COLINA CAROTHERS: I have one son, he’s seventeen months and so we’re still, we still have things that he hasn’t tried yet. But we’ve had pretty good success with everything so far. There is one night at dinner he broke out in a rash and we could not [inaudible] of us pin it down and it hasn’t happened since. So I have hope that it was a fluke

SUNNY GAULT: Fingers crossed.

COLINA CAROTHERS: Yeah. I’m like hopefully whatever it was, it’s not going to come back

SUNNY GAULT: Exactly. Okay. Thanks everyone

[Theme Music]

SUNNY GAULT: Okay before we get started with today’s show we have an interesting news headline. And a lot of people have been talking about this headline, it’s on the internet. And it is called the Till Pumpkin Project. And it was first put out by an organization called FARE which stands for The Food Allergy and Education Research Group. And according to them one in thirteen children suffers from a food allergy. So they came up with the idea of what they’re calling the Teal Pumpkin Project.

I’ve seen a lot of people sharing these articles online, on Facebook and stuff. So here’s what it is, I should say at the time of taping this episode, it’s almost Halloween and that’s what the Teal Pumpkin has to do with. So, they are asking parents on Halloween night to set out a Teal Pumpkin and that is going to represent that they have alternatives for children with sensitivities or allergies to the traditional candy that you might find.

A lot of candy has nuts in it and some other things that gluten things like that, that may not be on your child’s diet so this is kind of a way for parents to easily be able to recognize these homes and choose whether or not they want their child to go up there. And they’re not really offering food alternatives, it’s more like glow sticks or you know something that’s not food related because there’s a lot of sensitivities out there and it would be hard to fulfil everybody’s needs.

So, I wanted to throw this out to you guys. What do you guys think about this? I’ll start with Tiffany, since you have a child with allergies, do you like this idea? Would you be looking for Teal Pumpkins this Halloween?

TIFFANY CASTRO: I love this idea. And hopefully when my daughter’s a little older she’ll be able to participate. Last year because she can’t have candy, the incent of the trick or treat really wasn’t there for her. And so, walking up to stranger’s doors to get nothing or to get something for dad was not a feeling at all.

I think we hit five doors before we realize we’ve totally traumatized her. This year we’re lucky enough to attend a candy free Halloween party on a Halloween night. So, we’ll be doing that. But I’m sure as she gets older she’ll want to join in actual trick or treating with friends. And so, hopefully the Teal Pumpkin catches on, that’ll be really fun

SCOTT KILIAN: Yeah, I love this idea. It’s in complete alignment with what I believe about the Halloween, I would, you know we don’t really give out candy, you know in any way. But I’m reminded of when my son and I went to my dad’s place and we’re going around the houses. One of the houses actually owned by a dentist gave him three things. One was like a king size snicker bar, then a full sized toothbrush and a full size tube of toothpaste. So,

SUNNY GAULT: In that order, eat candy bar

SCOTT KILIAN: I had never heard of this teal project until you’ve mentioned. But that was the first thing, I thought we’ll like it’s interesting

SUNNY GAULT: What no floss? Floss wasn’t part of it?

SCOTT KILIAN: We get a comeback around the second time for that

SUNNY GAULT: Oh I see. Colina what do you think?

COLINA CAROTHERS: Oh I love, I love this because, you know, there’s, there’s so many kids out there that have these problems and then we’ve got, we’ve got other family members that have allergies and I’ve had, you know, siblings with severe allergies. And growing up, my poor brother, he could not tolerate dairy at all.

Not the slightest bit of dairy. And he would have the rash but he’d also had asthma so he’d have breathing problems. And so it’s very serious for him. And Halloween kind of stunk because the majority of the candy you get is chocolate and so we’d have to sit there, we’d all dump our bags out and luckily there are six kids.

So, this made it a little easier but I can imagine if he was like an only child or had just one sibling would be problematic. We’d all dump our candy out and he’d put all his chocolate down and we’d sit there and we basically barter for all his chocolate. And he’d get whatever that was not chocolate.

And so, but you know for kids that don’t have a big family or siblings that are willing to do that for whatever reason, you know, it kind of stinks, because they don’t really get that full participation so I would totally do this we definitely will do this if we end up being in a position where we’re going to hand out anything and I think that this hopefully this carries on because it’s wonderful to be able to include all the kids in Halloween.

SCOTT KILIAN: I just one thing, when I was thinking about this Teal pumpkin project, have you guys heard of gals heard of the switch witch? Heard of the switch witch? So switch witch is you get all your candy go to your 75 houses or whatever you really like not going to have to park this year and you take all of your candy and what happens is you put it there and in the night time the switch witch comes, takes all your candy and replaces it with something else.

Like maybe a non-candy, toy or some sort or something like that too but it’s another way probably to people with allergies they can still participate but then they can still have get the ultimate benefit of something

SUNNY GAULT: Oh, that’s nice. I like that.

[Theme Music]

SUNNY GAULT: It’s hard enough to get your kids to try new foods especially if they think this new foods could cause them to break out in hives, rashes or even worse. And that’s what it’s like when your child has food allergies. Lindsey Stenovec is the featured expert on our shows. She’s a registered dietician and nutrition specialist and her company is called Nutrition Instincts. So, Lindsey thanks for joining us today.

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Yeah, thanks for having me.

SUNNY GAULT: I should say that Lindsey is newly post-partum, she has a little boy that’s in our not in our studio right here but who knows he may be joining us at some point and so we really appreciate you coming in. So tell us about food allergies. What is a food allergy compared to sensitivity or intolerance?

LINDSAY STENOVEC: It’s a really common question and a really good question. So when you’re looking at just a food allergy you’re looking at an immune system response, typically an “immunoglobulin e” immediate response. Which is just involved in the testing basically as far as you know in terms of knowledge it’ll be important to know about that.

When the body is confused and thinks that someone has ingested something that’s harmful, for a food allergy that would be protein in food. And so the body thinks “oh my gosh, this is harmful” and we need to send in our immune response to take care of it and it creates an inflammatory response which then could produce a range of symptoms.

Typically for food allergies, we’re looking at hives; we’re looking at possibly swelling of the lips and tongue. And more severely, we’re looking at what you described earlier: trouble breathing or possibly anaphylactic shock which is fatal, its closing of the throat if not treated immediately.

So that is what a food allergy is going to typically look like and present like and that is tested in a doctor’s office and preferably a board-certified pediatric allergist who can do a series of test, and not just one test, they’ll probably going to do a skin prick test, possibly a blood test and then maybe even do some sort food challenge where they expose the child in office to that food and look at their response. Because its usually going to be a fast, a pretty fast response.

When we’re looking at something like a food sensitivity, it’s a lot less well-defined. They’re out there, its real. They’re just not as well understood and you’re going to get a lot of information depending on which professional you go to, to evaluate a food sensitivity. There are different types of tests that are out there to evaluate whether or not someone has a sensitivity it is typically involving the immune system but different types of inflammatory markers and the “immunoglobulin e”.

So they’re “non-immunoglobulin e” immediate responses. Symptoms can range from I think they are free to share, some of your experiences but it can range and it’s not going to be something like anaphylactic shock it could be headaches, it could be IBS, it could be arthritis even, you know, but usually in adults. But yeah, there’s a much more broad range of symptoms that people will say “gosh, I’ve always had this issue, no one can solve it” and sometimes they’ll go to a professional and start doing some tests and some elimination of different foods and they find “oh my gosh this went away” how about that, does that makes sense?

SUNNY GAULT: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. So, Tiffany with your daughter how did this kind of manifest itself how old was your daughter and what did you start to notice?

TIFFANY CASTRO: Oh my gosh, it was from birth. From day one and when they’re little, you get a lot of different input about how my one week old was strong-willed or difficult or a lot of adult traits that you put on a child probably just in hindsight, didn’t feel well but it started with what looked like colic and then what looked like reflex and then what looked like chronic constipation and its really easy to go down different trails with the information that doesn’t particularly pertain to your situation.

And so we went down some of those trails and realized that really the culprit was food and food was making her sick. And at the time I didn’t I was not going down the right trails to even know to eliminate while I was nursing which you absolutely can do pretty easily with good results so we didn’t eliminate from her diet until she, we started around 13, 14 months old and by 18 months I had a completely different child.

My experience with motherhood changed dramatically. I had no idea that my child was sick. I thought that, I thought that all of these adult traits that people are putting on my child were real and that she was just, you know.

She didn’t smile until she was six months old which just breaks my heart now because she didn’t feel good. So I think this, a lot of it was excessive crying which now I k now excessive crying. A new mother doesn’t know what excessive crying. It all seems excessive. And then really when her stomach started to slow down and she was not able, and she was constipated.

That was sort of like the giant red flag. And that’s when you go running in to the doctor and luckily we ended the right one. So that was helpful

SUNNY GAULT: And what do they have you do? Like, was it just starting to eliminate certain foods out of the diet until you figured out where she, you know, when issues

TIFFANY CASTRO: Yes we did, a few different things. The first thing that they have, they had us do was dairy because that’s very common especially with the symptom of constipation. Dairy’s the first to go. And she actually did get a little bit better. But her symptoms returned and that’s when we we’re working with at that point, we were working with naturopathic doctors, so an ND which is different from a naturopath.

But they would give her some remedies that would help temporarily. And then we did an IGG panel and that’s not perfect test but it was perfect for us at that time. And it helped us see what to eliminate and that made it much clearer that gluten was kind of our big bully. So a dairy, dairy was a contributor.

We really needed to kick the gluten and then since then we realized that she likely has celiac disease. She’s actually too sensitive to do, to feed her gluten to do a stomach biopsy to confirm it but we’re having that out of her diet, all of those things and helping with healing. The healing was needed to be done because of the damage to her body. She’s a different kid, she’s happy, she’s awesome now it’s really, and it’s really changed our lives. Our whole family’s lives. So, very grateful

SUNNY GAULT: Are there symptoms that Tiffany was describing, is that pretty consistent with what you know, you’ve seen and you’ve heard about whether it’s a sensitivity or an official allergy?

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Again they’re going to kind of present differently. With an allergy it’s going to be a, they’re going to be a little more consistent in terms of you are probably going to see some sort of rash. You might see a change in digestion for children.

Again trouble breathing, something going out in the mouth either swelling of the lips and tongue, some itchiness, that kind of thing would give you a red flag to go that route. And you always want to rule out that type of allergy first because we have that have been around longer.

There are you know a little more research and they have a lower instance of false positive and false negatives meaning you know you test positive but you actually don’t have a problem or you test negative and you do. And then like Tiffany was saying, the next step looking in to a different sensitivity and the different types of immune responses that could be going on and not a perfect test.

But then if you’re working with the right practitioner, a trained naturopathic doctor, a dietician, they’re not going to just hand you this list of foods and say, okay this is their long list of No’s and maybe’s in greens and I’ll never see you again. Thanks for your money. They’re going to continue to work with you and do an elimination diet from there so it’s like a starting point.

And that helps control for some of those, there’s a higher incidence of false positives and false negatives. So yeah, they help work those out and really look at how is this child responding or adult. Yea, would you say that’s

TIFFANY CASTRO: Yeah we had a lot of help from there, wasn’t here is your test, see you later especially since I was insistent on needing help at that point.

LINDSAY STENOVEC: I’ve had clients come in, I have adults come in whether or like, oh my mom took me to this person when I was thirteen and gave me that long list. And since then I’ve eliminated soy, wheat, dairy, I mean I list all these things where it’s so difficult for them. And I could go with “did they keep working with you on it”, no, you know have you had it before, like recently and you’re okay, yeah I can have it sometimes. So we start to know, okay they didn’t really eliminate it correctly.

SCOTT KILIAN: Tiffany I was just curious how you finding that, you know when you go out that you have to make the food and I mean, or can you leave it. I mean do you, like what do you have to do, it matches more labor intensive to try to make sure.

TIFFANY CASTRO: She comes packing with her own stuff pretty much everywhere she goes. But there are places we can eat surprisingly. It’s not as hard as you think; we avoid things that have been cooked with other things. There’s a restaurant local called Stacked and every single time we go there, we hear people snickering around us about the fact that they carry gluten-free fries because potatoes don’t have gluten.

Well you’ll know if you’re sensitive to gluten that if fries are cooked with chicken fingers, that’s really, really dangerous for you. So, yes potatoes are gluten free but depending on what oil that they’re cooked in or cross-contamination that’s when you can get into a lot of trouble. But we find places that we can eat and that she can eat and she usually brings her own little side of something to supplement whenever she decides to order.

But she’s only three, so three year olds aren’t usually restaurant kind of source yet, it is usually for mom and dad

SUNNY GAULT: How does she feel about, I mean I know she’s still young but does she realize that she’s eating something different than you know if you’re out of play date or something like that and other people and how does she process that at this young age?

TIFFANY CASTRO: It’s been a journey so far and how much she is grown in being able to self-advocate. And we did have some very unfortunate interactions when she, about a year ago which were devastating for her health wise.

But as far as eating things different, it seems to me that kids don’t care very much at this age especially and she kind of runs around with a really cool crew of kids that all sort of eat healthier and have alternative snacks. And sometimes she’ll share a pack of seaweeds which everyone can eat and they really dig. But she brings around food and she’s okay with that.

She’s just started saying I don’t like gluten, it hurts my tummy. And so, that sort of the first step for her and being able to talk about it as being able to identify some of the things that hurt her. And although that doesn’t encompass everything, well as soon as she says that people don’t feed her, even though it doesn’t, it doesn’t account for everything, it puts a big stop sign up so. . .

SUNNY GAULT: I feel like gluten is one of those big kinds of buzz words now. And for a lot of people it needs to be, you know taken out of their diet. Have you found that Lindsey that you know more and more people are talking about is this just something in Southern California that we hear more about versus kind of a national thing?

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Yeah I think, there’s a couple of things going on I think one it is definitely that there are people that adults and parents that eliminate gluten for not a whole lot of reason. Just because they’ve heard of that and they aren’t really sure what it is but they think oh well, you know, I’m going to do this for x, y and z reason.

And then there is an increase in diagnosis and understanding of both celiac disease and then more and more practitioners are starting to look at gluten sensitivity. So gluten intolerance is celiac disease. And that is much more well understood than a gluten sensitivity at this point at least, you know we’re seeing an increase in understanding and diagnosis of that as well.

But especially for parents with children they just want to really make sure that they’re doing that. If they’re eliminating any type of food that it’s for reasons that they you know, have observed and thoroughly, you know, ask questions of medical practitioners and things like that just because you know as they grow older. That might be something they stick with and not be so fond of and they may have not had to eliminated those foods you know

SUNNY GAULT: Okay. If someone is classified as having official food allergy, does that stay with them? You know in case of Tiffany’s daughter, is that going to stay with her whole life? I mean I know, you don't treat her specifically, but this is an example right?

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Yeah so, I don’t know about Tiffany’s daughter, but, for food allergies, kids can grow out of them. They are less likely so we’ll talk about the topic in a little bit. They’re less likely to grow out of a nut, peanut, fish or shellfish fish allergy. For some of the other top eight, they can.

SUNNY GAULT: Okay.

COLINA CAROTHERS: I was going to say my brother, the one who had the severe dirt allergy when he was smaller, he can eat it now as an adult. Yeah. And it took a long time and it was like a slow progression. So when he was like a teenager, he’s like ‘I just really want to try chocolate’, you know so he tries it and he had, it wasn’t a severe of a reaction but he still had a reaction.

And he’s like ‘uh’ you know, and so then as he got older then you know, he would try it again. And now he can eat most things and he’s okay. He’s not fond of a lot of stuff with dairy because he didn’t grow up eating it. You know he has still kind of has this association but he doesn’t, it’s not doesn’t give him as bad of the time.

LINDSAY STENOVEC: And you can do that and you go stop by like at the doctor’s office and have them exposed your child to certain foods as they’re getting older and to see how the reaction looks.

SUNNY GAULT: Tiffany have you asked that question, is you daughter going to have, have you asked that to her?

TIFFANY CASTRO: Yes. It was a big blow this year because we went back to get sort of a checked up and re-tested and we sort of thought that she might’ve just been sensitive to these things. And it was like being hit by a bus all over again when they said ‘no’ she’s probably celiac and so this is not something that she’s going to outgrow and you know after infancy.

But, you know you get over it, you realize that this is for her health. It makes her life easier and better and it might be slightly more difficult for her mother, but it’s not bad at all. And just on how hyped up it is right now with gluten for at least for our experience it’s been a double edge sword with more people knowing what gluten is, that’s helpful.

But with so many people coming in to restaurants or anywhere saying that they can’t have gluten, I’ve heard from a lot of people in the industry that they don’t take it very seriously anymore which is really hard. And I have a girlfriend that grew up with celiac and she said people would just, you know, if they found out that there’s a celiac person in the restaurant they were going to be very careful. And now you don’t get, you don’t live with that same reaction.

So, I kind of have to we do go places where we know that they’re going to be very receptive understanding of that. So it’s kind of the unfortunate side to the publicity on gluten

SUNNY GAULT: Okay, well when we come back we’re going to learn more about the top eight foods that are causing all the fuzz when it comes to food allergies. We’ll be right back

[Theme Music/Intro]

SUNNY GAULT: Welcome back, today we’re talking with Dietician and Nutritionist Specialist Lindsay Stenovec and we’re talking about common food allergies in children. So now were going to dive in to our top eight list of the different food allergies found in children that are common in children. So let’s start with the first one Lindsay, Soy

LINDSAY STENOVEC: So as soy, soy happens to be found in a lot of our products. We, soy protein isolate. We use soy as a protein source or protein component in a lot of different foods so that can be tough. What’s great about the fact that there is a, I mean it’s not great but there’s a top eight.

So when you look at the ingredient list of food, there are required to list if soy is part of the product as contained in the food. So you don’t have to be as much of an expert at sifting through every single little ingredient. Although it doesn’t hurt to review it just in case, because I have had, I’ve worked for a school district and head start and we’ve had many instances where we’ve had to call the manufacturer and say is this correct? You know, is there a mistake? But, but yeah, you know, you want to double-check with that.

SUNNY GAULT: Okay

LINDSAY STENOVEC: And it is one that kids can grow out of. And that one include whole soy as well as tofu soy milk and things like that

SUNNY GAULT: Okay. And wheat

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Wheat. So, wheat allergies, it’s different in gluten allergies. So with the wheat allergy, again we’re looking at that and “immunoglobulins e” response. And it absolutely has to be eliminated from a child’s diet but they don’t have to eliminate everything that contains gluten. So it’s a little bit different.

They can have rye, they can have barley, oatmeal and things like that, that kiddos that are intolerant to gluten would have to eliminate and among many other derivatives of those grains as well. So that’s a little more complicated. But will be listed on a product and also can be one that kids grow out of sometimes

SUNNY GAULT: I guess I didn’t realize I just, you know, grouped gluten in all wheat and that’s, that’s not true huh

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Well if you think about, I mean, if you’re gluten sensitive or gluten intolerant, yes every wheat product has to be eliminated. But the allergy is not to gluten, it’s to proteins and wheat, which gluten is a protein and wheat. But, if it’s not an allergy to gluten then it’s just the elimination of wheat.

SUNNY GAULT: I see.

LINDSAY STENOVEC: There are a million of different teeny tiny little ingredients with gluten and I’m so, you know, if you don’t have to worry about those then that’s usually found to be helpful although Tiffany’s really good at it

SUNNY GAULT: Okay Dairy, I know that’s a big one.

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Yeah. Dairy is really common. And so, I think we’re all pretty familiar with our dairy products, our yogurt, cheese, milk, butter and those have to be eliminated completely as well as any food that has casing[inaudible] or whey in it. Again, that will be listed on the ingredient list

SUNNY GAULT: Is that breast milk too? Breast milk for babies?

LINDSAY STENOVEC: No

SUNNY GAULT: Okay

LINDSAY STENOVEC: No. You could have milk proteins in your breast milk. I believe, but no, they will not be, they should not be allergic to breast milk. To be allergic or intolerant to breast milk is really, really rare

SUNNY GAULT: I see

LINDSAY STENOVEC: You know because that’s made for, specifically for baby

SUNNY GAULT: Right

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Yeah

SUNNY GAULT: Okay. Fish, any kind of fish? Is that what we’re talking about?

LINDSAY STENOVEC: So yeah fish and shellfish, sometimes, as parents we’ll have kids eliminate both even if they haven’t tested positive for both. That’s kind of a combination and that we see a lot just to be safe, safer than sorry. And also to eliminate, you know if they are at school or something when they’re older and people don’t understand the difference just to have both eliminated.

And if it happens to be, you know one issue could be like burger sometimes might have anchovies in them. That was an incident at our school at one point, our district, yeah. You kind of want to, you want to check

SUNNY GAULT: Something that you would think would have fish and . . .

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Right. It’s a flavor, flavor thing but yeah.

SUNNY GAULT: Okay

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Tree nuts and peanuts, same idea. A child may not test positive for both but a lot of the times parents will eliminate both because they tend to find that they’re processed in similar plants and they’re not required to say processed in a plant, you know that also processes peanuts or whatever.

They’re not actually required, they do that voluntarily. So that’s a good thing for parents to know. But peanuts are legumes, where tree nuts are nuts and so it’s actually not as common for them be allergic to both as people think. So you may not, you know, if you have a child who are allergic to walnuts might still be able to consume peanuts.

But that would be something that you’d obviously get tested and you know, discuss with your doctor. And then with eggs, again whole eggs and also egg in product, although I had and I don’t know how they were tested but I had many, many children through the school districts of Head Start who can have egg cooked in product, but not a whole egg. So that’s, that’s very common.

SUNNY GAULT: And is all these different if it’s raw versus cooked? I mean can all that play a role too or no?

LINDSAY STENOVEC: No. They’ll be allergic whether it’s raw versus cooked for any of these products, which you wouldn’t recommend raw eggs but yeah with like soy and things like that yeah.

SUNNY GAULT: Wow. Okay.

LINDSAY STENOVEC: And also we want to look with cross-contamination with any of these so you can do all of your due diligence and not like how many of these foods in the child’s, you know, meal that you know Tiffany is saying.

TIFFANY CASTRO: Gluten-free fries.

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Yeah. Exactly.

COLINA CAROTHERS: There’s a fast-food restaurant and I won’t name names but they add beef flavoring to their French fries and the beef flavoring contains gluten. And I know that because my Aunt has celiac. And so she told me that and I was like ‘you’re kidding me, it’s French fries’, no they add a flavoring and the flavoring has gluten so you’ll never know

SUNNY GAULT: An investigator with this.

TIFFANY CASTRO: It does feel that way

SUNNY GAULT: Yeah. And it has to be scary Tiffany, as a parent, I mean I know, you know your daughter’s probably not eating at all at this fast food place right now but as she grows older, you know, you just never know what’s in this stuff.

TIFFANY CASTRO: Being scared of food is a hard thing in general because foods supposed to bring people together. Its part of our culture, so being scared of it is difficult. But the upside is that she eats really healthy. We just don’t go to fast food. She brings out you know healthy snacks where she goes and she wasn’t introduced to those things so she’s not really going to have much of a taste for them so I look out in that regard

SUNNY GAULT: And Tiffany, what advice would you have for parents out there that are either listening to this. Maybe they have, you know kids with allergies or food sensitivities or maybe, you know, they just may come in contact, you know we all will probably come in contact with children that fit that category. So what advice do you have for parents out there?

TIFFANY CASTRO: Please, I know that it’s very tempting to give a toddler, or a pre-schooler or a small child food and you love seeing that face when you give some, give them something or they might, I’ve heard look hungry. I think my daughter always looks hungry. But I take a hundred percent responsibility in feeding her. And we’ve had really, really bad interactions where people have put something in her hand.

We’ve gone to, people have, I’ve been wearing her in my back and someone will put a sample in her hand and then I won’t see it. And she was just too young not to know what it was or even, even just putting it in her mouth to see because they, she was in the stage where she put things in her mouth that weren’t food. And so I would just implore that people just leave it to the parents to feed their own children.

I don’t, as kind as it is to share a snack at the park, it could make my child very, very sick. And outside of that, hand washing really helps a lot. Antibacterial does not, the hand washing helps so that would help me a lot thanks.

SUNNY GAULT: Thank you, thank you for being the parent where [inaudible] it was great hearing your story and we appreciate that. And Lindsey, thank you so much for being with us today as well

LINDSAY STENOVEC: Thank you

SUNNY GAULT: For more information on child food allergies or if you want to learn more about Lindsey our expert, you can visit our website at www.newmommymedia.com. This conversation continues for members of our parent savers club. In our bonus content, Lindsey will share her thoughts on desensitizing your children and the foods they may be allergic to and whether or not he should even try it. For more information about our club, visit our website

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ROBIN KAPLAN: Hi Parent Savers, this is Robin Kaplan, an International Board Certified Lactation consultant, owner of the San Diego breastfeeding center and the host and producer of Parent Savers sister show, The Boob Group. I’m here to offer some advice on different breastfeeding remedies. Such as, how can I get over my fear of breastfeeding in public?

I remember the first time I breastfed my son Ben in public. He was six weeks old. My husband Jayson and I were driving up to his sister’s Kim’s wedding in Northern California. We’d stop in Los Angeles for lunch and it was brutally hot. Like ninety five degrees in the parking lot. And I actually contemplated nursing Ben in the car, but I was sweating so profusely I figured, nope, I got to go to the restaurant. So, in to the restaurant we went. I sat down at a table and got a large receiving blanket.

I distinctly remember asking Jayson to stay behind me to pull down the blanket so that I could hide my six weeks postpartum back fat. To me, covering my back was actually more important than possibly flashing a boob. Up until now, I had been helping Ben get a comfortable latch by compressing my breast into that breast sandwich. I wondered how I was going to do this without the blanket slipping off of my shoulder. I slowly lowered Ben under the blanket, lifted up my shirt and bam! That kiddo latch without my help whatsoever, clearly he was a very capable participant. I just had no idea.

So, from then on breastfeeding in public was a breeze. Sure, he made extremely loud gulping noise as while eating which often attracted some onlookers. But now, I was comfortable feeding him anywhere. And I began to feel an incredible sense of freedom. So, here are my top tips for breastfeeding in public.

First, practice at home, so that you are comfortable latching your baby while sitting in different chairs and wearing different shirts. If you were uncomfortable breastfeeding in public without a cover, practice using that cover or a blanket in front of a mirror so you can actually see what you’re doing.

Next, find stress free places to breastfeed in public such as the north terms nursing room or breastfeeding support group. It’s no big deal if you flash a boob in front of other moms. And you can also ask them what tricks they have tried to become comfortable nursing in public. Another trick is to practice breastfeeding in a carrier wrap or sling.

I remember my sister-in-law walking around the San Diego Zoo while nursing her daughter in a movie wrap. It was super discrete, and she didn’t even have to stop and sit down. Lastly, go to lunch with a few other breastfeeding moms and practice at their company.

You will most likely feel less stress if you are surrounded by other women plus you can learn some valuable tricks from them. For more great information about different breastfeeding remedies, check out my blog at www.sandiegobreastfeedingcentre.com/blog and be sure to listen to Parent Savers and The Boob Group for fantastic conversations about breastfeeding and breastfeeding support

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SUNNY GAULTIFFANY CASTRO: That wraps up our show for today. We appreciate you listening to Parent Savers.
Don’t forget to check out our sister shows:
• Preggie Pals for expecting parents
• The Boob Group for moms who breastfeed and
• Twin Talks for parents of multiple kids.

This is Parent Savers empowering new parents.

[Disclaimer]
This has been a New Mommy Media production. Information and material contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of New Mommy Media and should not be considered facts. Though information in which areas are related to be accurate, it is not intended to replace or substitute for professional, Medical or advisor care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating health care problem or disease or prescribing any medications. If you have questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider.

SUNNY GAULT: New Mommy Media is expanding our line up of shows for new and expecting parents. If you have an idea for a new series or if you’re a business or organization interested in joining our network of shows through a co-branded podcast, visit www.NewMommyMedia.com .

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