Allergy in Your Child: Its Probable Causes

The moment that you notice the manifestations of an allergy in your child, the best course of action is to bring your child to a doctor. Since most children are irritable and cannot communicate intelligently when they are feel sick or are uncomfortable, it is useless to determine the cause of discomfort on your own. A doctor possesses the training and experience to correctly identify the source of discomfort and prescribed the correct medication.

The home is not as safe as you think it is, most of the allergy in your child are actually acquired inside the home from food, inhalants, and contact irritants. These three categories alone are known to be the causes of a wide variety of hypersensitivity symptoms.

Food Allergies
There are distinct and varying manifestations of allergy among adults and children. A food allergy in your child is most likely a reaction to milk, eggs and peanuts; however, children often outgrow hypersensitivity to these foods.

Avoidance and prevention of food allergy in your child is accomplished by keeping them away from high-risk foods. To build up the immune system, it is highly recommend to breastfeed your child for the first six months; however, if supplementary feeding is absolutely necessary, it is best to use a hypoallergenic milk formula. Pediatricians and immunologists also recommend refraining from feeding children with dairy products until they are 12 months old, eggs until they are 2 years old and nuts and fish until they are 3 years of age.

Inhalant Allergies

Indoor environment factors like pets and dust mites can also cause an allergy in your child. Observe proper hygiene and cleanliness procedures in order to minimize these environmental allergen sources and keep your child, yourself included, healthy and happy. If you must have pets, make sure they are always clean and keep them outside the house as much as possible.

To avert the possibility of dust mite allergy in your child, you can use special covers to for your pillows, mattresses and box springs to deprive dust mites of their primary food – dead skin cells. Additionally, you can reduce the carpeted areas and the number of rugs you use in the house.

Contact Allergies

Allergy in your child can also be the result of contact with fragrances, gold, and laundry detergent. Make sure to use hypoallergenic cleaning and laundry chemicals and to keep fragrances and jewelry away from children. Contact dermatitis can trigger adverse skin reactions like hives, rashes and eczema.

Insect bites also present a danger to children and adults. Allergy to bee stings can result to skin irritation and cause life threatening anaphylaxis shock, which can only be treated with epinephrine.

Food, inhalants and contact irritants are the common household sources of an allergy in your child; identifying these substances can greatly reduces the risk of frightening symptoms of allergies. However, it is worthwhile to note that most childhood allergies are generally easy to manage and control with proper medical care.