Another reason not to listen to "experts" and believe "studies"

From this month's Parents magazine (March 2009) "Allergy News"

Food allergies are on the rise in kids - and there's now more evidence that avoiding culprits like peanuts at a young age may actually backfire. In a new study published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, children who didn't eat food containing peanuts during early childhood were ten times more likely to develop a peanut allergy than kids who ate peanuts before 12 months. Researchers suspect that exposure to peanuts early on may help kids build up a tolerance to them an prevent an allergy from developing. Talk you your pediatrician about when to introduce your child to foods that contain peanuts."

Well that's just super fantastic....

My doctor recommended we wait until 3 years old, so we followed her advice with Alexandria. Zach is now 22 months, so he's screwed, too. I guess we might as well give him peanuts now. I always wondering how that made sense - to wait until later to avoid an allergy. I was told their underdeveloped systems may not be able to handle peanuts and could trigger an allergy and that waiting until they were older might give that time to strengthen. I kinda just went, "ok", even though it didn't really make sense still.

Ah well. What the hay. I guess I'll give Zach a shrimp-filled peanut buster parfait drizzled with Bailey's tonight for dessert. Might as well see if we can avoid shellfish and alcohol allergies while we're at it.