Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DQ7tUAikdo7/The incidence of child peanut allergy dropped 43% over 8 years following NIH recommendation for feeding babies peanut products at an early age.  A University of Pennsylvania multi-site collaborative study of 124,868 children was just published in the journal Pediatrics. The data for peanuts but also for eggs, nuts, fish and other allergenic foods show that introducing these potential allergens at 4 to 6 months of age prevents later allergy development.  Typically, parents are advised to delay introducing these foods until later infancy or toddler months.  The early introduction trains the child’s immune system to tolerate these food antigens.These results now encourage pediatricians to recommend the early introduction of peanut, egg, nuts, fish and other allergenic foods at 4-6 months as the child becomes ready for solid food. Parents with newborns should discuss this strategy with their baby’s medical team in order not to miss the opportunity for preventing f