kids today. . . makes me nervous

kaos16

I was checking out my facebook feed earlier and saw posts from one new mom to another that came up on my wall.  Baby A has this sensitivity concerning diet, Baby B has two different sensitivities.  It got me thinking, it seems like everyone's child has a sensitivity or an allergy or is diagnosed with X, Y or Z.

Am I crazy, because at 31 years old I can't recall a time when my friends growing up had nearly any issue.  I didn't have any friends with peanut allergies, now everyone has them.  I didn't know a soul with a gluten sensitivity, now they are prevelant.

I am almost nervous to have kids in a world where everyone seems to have such a fragile system!  It's scary.

I haven't done a ton of research on the topic, admittedly, but I did see something a few months back where they were basically blaming the oversanitation of our society to explain it, saying that kids aren't exposed to any germs so they aren't able to handle them when they come into contact with them.

Maybe I'm becoming a basketcase because myself and DH are at a point where we are thinking about having kids, I don't know....

cupcait927

I don't necessarily think that allergies have gotten THAT much more prevalent, I think there just happens to be more awareness now that testing is more common.

For instance - FI has a corn allergy, which I've mentioned before. He wasn't diagnosed with the allergy until a little over a year ago. His symptoms include worsening of his eczema and hives. He lived with his symptoms for two years as an adult, thinking that he just had really bad skin because he dealt with the same thing as a little kid. Once he figured out he was allergic to corn, he thinks that he may have been allergic to it as well as a little kid and it kind of went dormant as he went through puberty and came back with a vengeance as an adult. His doctors never tested him for allergies as a kid because they thought it was just a skin condition and told his mom to moisturize him really well and use cortisone cream and no really hot baths.

I could be completely wrong and allergies could be on the rise but I think a lot has to do with just increased testing and finding out that symptoms once attributed to other conditions are actually a result of allergies.

JCbride2015

I think Cupcait is probably right.  There is just more media awareness about it and more testing.  Although it might be a bit of both-- we are flooding a lot of our kids with mega processed food, and isolating them from a lot of the normal playing-in-the-mud kind of kid activities.  

Fi's godson has the worst allergies I've ever seen.  Milk, wheat, most artificial colorings.  He has terrible eczema.  I have this personal (bitchy) theory that it's because his mother was so unhealthy during her pregnancy, but God knows why.  The kid is also tiny, way at the bottom of the weight percentage for his age.  He also might just be unlucky and it has nothing to do with his mom/ modern society.

Senecaf

I think it is more recognized now. These things have probably always been around but before symptoms were not attributed for food.

mysticl

I have an almost 22 month old.  No food allergies or sensitivities so far (knock on wood).  A specific brand of diaper gives him a rash and so does the adhesive on some bandaids (just like his momma).  There is some evidence that we have become "too clean" with our antibacterial this and antibacterial that and that may be causing an increase in environmental allergies because kids don't have a chance to build up their immune system.  

I think there is also the issue of diagnosis and testing and not just for allergies.  They didn't have the testing we have now and awareness we have now nor the treatments.  I have friends who have been diagnosed with various things and when they got treated they were like "wow, I didn't realize I could feel this good, I thought I was normal".  My mom (who is over 70) talks about how "they didn't have that in my day".  Did they not have it or did they not diagnose it?  And in her day people didn't share every single aspect of their life with the entire world via the computer.  They kept medical stuff to themselves because it was private.  

There is also the media.  OP if not for that fb post would you have ever known about Baby A or Baby B's sensitivities?  The bump has an entire board dedicated to food allergies.  So while we may not actually know anyone with a food allergy or maybe we know one or two people we read all these posts and articles and now we know of hundreds of people with food allergies.   So it seems like there are so many more than there were even just 10 years ago.  Whereas maybe it's because we just weren't quite as plugged in to hear about it 10 years ago.  

And about 35-40 years ago my husband and I both had severe issues with cow's milk.  

monkeysip

I agree it's probably a mixture of more awareness/diagnosis and a little bit of our antibacterial/oversantiized/germophobic behaviors.

There's also a lot of debate about how pregnancy and breastfeeding affects allergies.  One side argues that women need to be careful about what they eat during pregnancy and breastfeeding, like staying away from peanuts, because it could cause problems for the baby.  Others say its avoiding these foods that is causing allergic reactions when introduced later.  

Another example is pets.  Some researchers are arguing that babies need to be exposed to pets early on or they might develop allergies to pets later.  

But I'm not a scientist at all... just throwing some ideas out that I've heard.

Definitely a mixture of several complicated factors.

SBmini

I totally agree with the above- we hear about it more because we hear of everything more, so we're most sensitive to it. Also, people know the symptoms better. With thinks like wikipedia and webmd any parent can look up a symptom and find a diagnosis. It's the red car effect. Once you realize that you haven't seen a red car in a while, suddenly, there are red cars everywhere! You just have to look for them. 

I also think, to some degree, our heavily modified diets are screwing with our immune systems. We have invented new proteins and what not and added them to the food supply. Sometimes, the body sees these as foreign bodies and attacks them, causing an allergic reaction. I don't think there is any scientific proof of this- but maybe one day there will be. Here's a Ted talk on it. She's a mom, not a scientist and I think there's a lot of correlation without causation here, but she still has some good points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rixyrCNVVGA

larrygaga

Hahaha over-sanitation. People used to only bath once a year and died when they were 30.

jdluvr06

I think it is that there is just more awareness. My uncle has been allergic to nuts his whole life. When he was little and would get randomly sick no one knew why. They took him to tons of doctors and none of them thought to test for the allergies. It turns out he has a mild peanut allergy and severe pecan and walnut allergies. Seriously just the smell can make him sick. Now kids get tested for everything. Doctors check for allergies before moving on to other test.

mysticl

larrygaga said:

Hahaha over-sanitation. People used to only bath once a year and died when they were 30.

You're looking at an extreme end of the spectrum. There is a lot between bathing once a year and using hand sanitizer multiple times a day.  And there was more to that than just not bathing. 

The overuse of antibiotics and antibacterial products has led to antibiotic resistant bacteria.  Many years ago I took a Microbiology class in college.  In lab we did an experiment comparing how much bacteria was left on our hands after washing with regular soap and water and after washing with antibacterial soap and water.  Guess what? There was no difference.  The key is proper hand washing procedure.  So why use a product that causes the bacteria to become resistant and may increase the incidents of allergies when another one works just as well?

LadyMillil

I'm getting my PhD in microbiology and immunology. I don't work on allergies but I've done a ton of reading on them, and several colleagues do study allergies.

The "cleanliness" issue is called they Hygiene hypothesis. The basis of this is that in developed countries we are too clean now. This is a combination of antibacterial everything and kids not being outdoors playing in (and eating, because kids do that) mud/dirt etc as much. The idea is that this lack of exposure to the harmless microbes causes the immune system to skew to a hyper-active state that makes allergies more likely to develop to harmless things. This also leads to the increase in asthma that has been observed in developed countries. There is some evidence to support this, which includes allergies being much more prevalent in kids that were raised in the city compared to kids that were raised on farms; and the fact that allergies and asthma are very rare in developing countries. Many scientists that I've spoken to don't believe that the hygiene hypothesis is completely the cause of this increase in allergies.

The more recent idea that I've heard is that lack of early exposure to things like peanuts are the problem. Many doctors have pregnant and nursing women avoid peanuts, and it is not recommended to give peanuts to your kids until they are 2-3 years old (I believe). There is some evidence to support this. A talk I went to 2 weeks ago showed data comparing peanut allergies in Canada and Israel. In Canada the kids weren't given peanuts until they were 2-3 and there was a high rate of allergies (I don't remember the %). Is Israel peanut products were introduced into the diet at 6 months. The peanut allergy rate was 0.

TL:DR - There are many factors that are contributing to the rise in allergies. Better hygiene and lack of early exposure to allergens are small pieces of this complex puzzle. Scientists are still trying to figure out the other pieces. 

NYCBruin

I think for the most part, it's mostly just people becoming more aware.  I think a lot of people just never noticed before that they had allergies/sensitivities to certain foods before because they didn't notice a link between symptoms and food.

Except for peanut allergies, that's definitely more prevalent.  Given that peanut allergies have extreme reactions, it seems pretty silly to say that people just didn't notice peanut allergies before.  I'd never heard of the concept of a peanut free school until a few years ago and now they seem like they are everywhere.  I don't know anyone my age or older with peanut allergies.

mysticl

LadyMillil said:

I'm getting my PhD in microbiology and immunology. I don't work on allergies but I've done a ton of reading on them, and several colleagues do study allergies.

The "cleanliness" issue is called they Hygiene hypothesis. The basis of this is that in developed countries we are too clean now. This is a combination of antibacterial everything and kids not being outdoors playing in (and eating, because kids do that) mud/dirt etc as much. The idea is that this lack of exposure to the harmless microbes causes the immune system to skew to a hyper-active state that makes allergies more likely to develop to harmless things. This also leads to the increase in asthma that has been observed in developed countries. There is some evidence to support this, which includes allergies being much more prevalent in kids that were raised in the city compared to kids that were raised on farms; and the fact that allergies and asthma are very rare in developing countries. Many scientists that I've spoken to don't believe that the hygiene hypothesis is completely the cause of this increase in allergies.

The more recent idea that I've heard is that lack of early exposure to things like peanuts are the problem. Many doctors have pregnant and nursing women avoid peanuts, and it is not recommended to give peanuts to your kids until they are 2-3 years old (I believe). There is some evidence to support this. A talk I went to 2 weeks ago showed data comparing peanut allergies in Canada and Israel. In Canada the kids weren't given peanuts until they were 2-3 and there was a high rate of allergies (I don't remember the %). Is Israel peanut products were introduced into the diet at 6 months. The peanut allergy rate was 0.

TL:DR - There are many factors that are contributing to the rise in allergies. Better hygiene and lack of early exposure to allergens are small pieces of this complex puzzle. Scientists are still trying to figure out the other pieces. 

STB:

I am so using that when people say something to me about giving my 22 month old peanut butter.  I went with the stuff I read that said only avoid it during pregnancy and breastfeeding if the mother (duh) or father is allergic. Neither one of us are. He was over a year when I introduced it.  I didn't really have a timetable for introducing stuff once we started solids.  I just went for what would be easy to eat first.  

Our Pediatrician is also pro introducing potential allergens.  My husband and I both had severe sensitivities to cow's milk as babies and toddlers.  I was nervous about giving DS milk.  When I talked to his doctor she was basically like "look the only way to find out if he has a sensitivity is to give him milk and see what happens, and you'd rather control the situation than have it happen by accident."  Turns out he doesn't have our milk issues.  I also did not avoid dairy during pregnancy or breastfeeding.  

KatWAG

I think paranioa and helicopter parenting are also factors.

I know my SIL wouldnt let her daughter try eggs until she got daughter tested for an allergy. Even though there is no history of food allergies on  either side of the family.

KatWAG

I also think a lot of people claim to have an allegry when its actually just a sensitivity.