Mother gives personal advice about dealing with peanut allergy

The following information is based on the experience of a mother who had to deal with her child's severe peanut allergy. These are her personal thoughts on how she coped with the situation. What works for one child may NOT work for everyone.

When my daughter started at nursery school, I was terrified that some children would bring in 'nutty' snacks for picnics or outings. The school had a nut-free policy, but when children bring in their own food, that can be hard to 'police'. As my daughter sucked her thumb, I was worried that she might hold hands with a child who had eaten something with nuts in and then suck her thumb with some of the nut on it.

To minimise that risk, I sent a very carefully worded letter to all the other mothers in the class explaining the severity of my daughter's alllergy and my obvious worries. I then requested (very politely) that, if they could avoid giving their children nutty snacks, I'd be hugely grateful. I also pointed out that it would be helpful if they didn't bring old 'nutty' cereal packets for 'junk modelling' as bits of nut can get caught in the cardboard folds. I acknowledged that some children will only eat certain foods at that age and, if that happened to be peanuts, I'd be keen to know about it so that I could alert Jo to be careful (I was constantly amazed how sensible she could be). I received several very moving letters from mothers assuring me that they would be extra vigilant. On the one occasion that a mother brought in peanut butter sandwiches for her son, I was amazed how my friends dealt with the mother before I had a chance to say anything!

Also,when my daughter was very young, I always accompanied her to birthday parties, school outings or treats of any kind. Although everyone was always aware of her allergy, they sometimes made mistakes or simply didn't realise how careful we had to be. To avoid my daughter's distress when she suddenly realised she couldn't have the cake or ice cream, I would always ensure that I had some of her favourite treats with me. It helped if I had enough to share with some of her friends so that she didn't think she was the only one eating something different. Obviously it is tactful to explain to your host what you are doing so that she is not offended by the rejection of her own food. Later when she was at full time school, I ensured that a bag of her favourite sweets were always on hand if an unexpected treats happened. Although, without exception, these would have been nut-free, it helped to have a bag of her own sweets just in case a member of staff erred on the side of caution and refused to let her have what was generally on offer.

The Anaphylaxis Campaign and Allergy UK provide fantastic help. One thing I found particularly useful were their credit card size 'translation' cards'. These provide information about a food allergy in a number of languages and can be handed to a waiter or chef in a restaurant so that they understand precisely what your child can or can't eat. These laminated cards also add a sense of 'officialdom' about your situation and my experience is that restaurants and cafes both here and abroad take the cards more seriously than my long winded explanation.

Jill

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