UAE: Why childhood food allergies are on the rise – and how to prevent them

UAE: Why childhood food allergies are on the rise – and how to prevent them

Just as I was blissfully settling into my first year of motherhood, life threw a curveball at me when my daughter was diagnosed with life-threatening food allergies. At that time, I was enjoying the weaning stage of her babyhood, gradually introducing her to the recommended new foods: rice cereal, fruits and vegetables. However, after a few weeks of persistent atopic dermatitis – or eczema – my then eight-month-old daughter's paediatrician suggested we do a test for food allergies. We were in disbelief when the results arrived. They revealed a list of allergenic foods that could be potentially deadly for our little girl: peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, fish, shellfish, soy and sesame. These were all foods that she had not yet tried. As someone who had absolutely no familiarity with the concept of food allergy, I was shocked. Where had she got this life-threatening condition from? Was there something we could have done to avoid it? My daughter was prescribed an epinephrine auto-injector – or an epipen – as the primary treatment for anaphylaxis, and we were sent home with instructions to strictly avoid contact with any allergens, plus reams of reading material to educate ourselves about food allergies. The serious