Does the Order of Allergenic Food Introduction Matter?

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What are the best foods for your baby when you're starting Baby-Led Weaning. Now, there are no right or wrong foods for starting solid foods safely, but if you are looking for inspiration and ideas on foods your baby can eat. I. have a free feeding guide called 10 Easy Starter Foods for Baby-Led Weaning . That will give you a bit of a roadmap. I packed this feeding guide full with two weeks full of new solid foods that your baby can eat. And I also include tips on how to make them safer in order to lower the choking risk. So you can download this free feeding guide. again, it's called 10 Easy Starter Foods for Baby led weaning. It has prep descriptions in there as well.

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Go to babyledweaning.co/resources. Again, that's babyledweaning.co/resources to download the 10 Easy Starter Foods for Baby-Led Weaning Free Feeding guide. How is the mental load of motherhood going for you? This baby stuff is a lot, right? Well, my goal is to give you one less thing to worry about and that's, hmm. what am I gonna feed the baby. If you are looking for a one stop solution that literally teaches you exactly how to safely help your baby learn how to eat real food. I wanna invite you to join my signature online program called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. This is the most comprehensive Baby-Led Weaning Program out there.

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I give you 20 weeks of meal plans for Baby-Led Weaning to help your baby safely eat five new Foods a week, which means they're going to finish their a 100 First Foods before turning one. As one mom who recently joined the program said quote, our lifestyle does not give us any mental capacity to think more about what to do with this baby. This program caters to our needs inside of the program. I have my hundred First Foods content library to show you exactly how to safely prepare all of the hundred first foods for your baby's current age and stage. My hundred First Foods daily meal plan is also included in there. It's all in one place. And a mom in our program, she said she joined because quote, I'm too tired of trying to figure out so many different things at once.

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I want someone to tell me what to do to catch up my nine month so we can stop using the same familiar foods we've been feeding her If. you are a type A organized per person, or like let's say you wanna be that kind of person, you wanna be more organized in what you feed your baby. Then I created the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program for you. You can sign up at babyledweaning.co/program. I have one program with all the stuff you need inside of it to get this thing done and get on with your life. Again, that's babyledweaning.co/program. Check it out, and I hope to see you there. And for that mom who wanted to introduce shellfish to her baby, one of the potentially allergenic food categories at six months of age, yes, that's totally safe to do.

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However, we don't just give a piece of cooked shrimp to a six month old, okay? That is a massive choking hazard for an early eater. They do not have the skillset to safely chew and swallow that, but you can modify shellfish and there are recipes you can make so that a six month old baby certainly can eat shellfish and feed it to themselves using Baby-Led Weaning even from their first bites. Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered dietician, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in Baby-Led Weaning here on the Baby-Led Weaning. Here in Baby-Led Weaning made easy podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid Foods using Baby-Led Weaning.

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One of the moms on the weekly live office hours inside of my program this week asked about the order of allergenic foods. She wanted to do shellfish early and often, and she said, I don't like shellfish and I just wanna get it out of the way, but does the order of the Allergenic foods that I introduce matter? And I realized I've never covered this topic on the podcast, but the short answer is no. There is no data that says, without a doubt, you need to introduce this allergenic food in this order before that one. And I encounter parents quite often who are finding information on social media or different accounts, and they'll say like, oh my gosh, they have all this very prescriptive approach to starting solid foods and I have to do it this way and I have to.

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That is not true. Again, there is no science or research that supports Introducing, Allergenic foods in a particular order. Now, having said that, inside of my program, I do have a standard order in which we introduce Allergenic foods, and I wanna explain why, but I always wanna teach parents the underlying principle, which is you don't have to follow this for the parents that are like, just tell me what food to feed on what day. All right, I've got it all laid out for you. We have a hundred first Foods daily meal plan. We do one new Allergenic food every Friday. We do five foods a week, and the allergenic food always comes on Friday and we start on week one of Baby-Led Weaning. So nine weeks into starting solid foods, your baby has eaten all nine of the Allergenic foods. Do you have to do them in the exact order that's in the program?

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No, absolutely not. Because again, the order of Allergenic foods does not matter. The caveat there is that the timing of the Introduction of Allergenic foods, there are some nuances here, and we'll start with the fact that we want to introduce these Allergenic foods early and often. And If, you look at the big nine allergenic foods, those are the nine foods that account for about 90% of food allergy in North America. We have fairly good data and it's stronger for some of the allergenic foods than for others. That early Introduction of these foods helps prevent the food allergy down the road. And to say that another way, there is absolutely no benefit to withholding the introduction of allergenic foods like we used to think that, right?

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20 years ago when I was going through dietician school, the general thinking and scientific practice was teach parents to withhold allergenic foods until after age one or two or three depending upon the food. We now know because of research that that's not true. The opposite is true. Early introduction of these allergenic foods is what we want. So we want you to get them in early and often. And scientists think that the protective window for Introducing, allergenic foods that that closes at around the 11 month mark. And so if you're kind of gauging, oh, where's my baby at? And have we done all the Allergenic foods? You want to get them in prior to 11 months of age? Okay, If, you wanna learn more about that?

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Go back to episode 227. Dr. David Stukus, our country's leading pediatric allergist was on the podcast talking about When Does the Food Allergy Prevention, Window Close. And he's kind of diving into some of that research, but the point is, you wanna get him in early and you wanna get them in often. So yes, the timing matters from that standpoint, but what order you go in that really doesn't matter. Now, in my program of the Big Nine Allergenic Foods, the three that we introduce first are peanuts, egg, and milk. The rationale being there that we have the strongest data for peanut. That early introduction helps. So if you're like, ugh, which one should I do first? Just do peanut first, okay? And, there it is, avery small subset of the population who may potentially even benefit from introduction of peanut even prior to six months of age.

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So if your baby is considered to be at high risk for peanut Allergy, that means they have a severe eczema and or they already have an egg allergy. So if your baby has one or both of those conditions, severe eczema and or already established egg Allergy, your baby is at high risk for peanut Allergy. And the guidelines, there are introduction somewhere between four and six months of age. Now this is where it gets a little gray because there's no data that shows that introduction at four months of age is any safer for those babies than waiting until six months of age. And of course, at six months of age is closer to when your baby can sit on their own, meaning that they're demonstrating the core strength and the head and neck control to facilitate a safe swallow. So they'd be safe to swallow anything except infant milk, including some safely prepared peanut foods closer to the six month mark.

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For the rest of the babies that are not in the high risk category, we wanna introduce peanut products around the six month mark, which is when Babies are safe to start eating foods. So you might as well start with peanut. It's the one that I think we do, or I know we have the strongest data for. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back. My phone is bursting at the seams with photos of our kids. And over the years I've tried all sorts of different ways to store and share them with family members so for a while I would just text out pictures to the grandparents and then we tried a shared photo album, but some people were using Google photos and others preferred Facebook Messenger for pictures and the more kids we had, the messier it got. Then I stumbled across the Family Album app.

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The Family Album app was created to give parents a secure and easy way to share photos and videos with loved ones. It's a totally secure personal haven for your family's memories. I love that there's no third party ads, no unwanted eyes, and it's totally free. No more scrolling through endless feeds or searching folders to find the picture of the kid that you need right now. Another cool feature about the Family Album app is you can order eight free photo prints every month to be delivered to your home, which If you think about how quickly your baby is changing. It's really nice to have some tangible pictures to hold onto or share to document the last month of your baby's life. If, you are looking to level up your photo sharing and organization game with a secure one-stop, easy to use photo organization app, head over to the app store, search Family Album, download the Family Album app and start creating a legacy of love, one photo at a time.

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When it comes to milk and egg, if we lump peanuts, milk and egg together, those are the three most common pediatric food allergies. So they're the ones that tend to be the most prolific in western food culture. So I say just get 'em outta the way. So you know, right? If your baby has been drinking formula or has had formula, then you already know that they're not allergenic to cow's milk protein because the base of commercial infant formula is cow's milk protein. However, for our exclusively breastfed babies, you definitely want to get that cow's milk protein in early and often. And so that's the one that I'll do usually after peanut, I kind of flip flop egg or milk. Again, it really doesn't matter. But for egg that is also so prolific in our food supply and it's so easy to make eggs safe for Baby-Led Weaning that I think it's a very good one to start with or do early on as well.

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So we'll do peanut milk and egg or peanut egg and milk. But in the first three weeks you've knocked out one third of the Allergenic foods and then the rest of 'em, the, again, the order that you go in, it really does not matter. But what a lot of families do is they give up after peanut milk and egg. Like, oh, they're not allergenic to those ones, but you gotta go do the other six Allergenic foods, right? You gotta do tree nuts and wheat and soy and fish and shellfish. And some families are like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that all of those were potentially Allergenic foods. So If, you can stay on a schedule where you introduce one allergenic food every week within the first nine weeks of starting solid foods. You, you know, gosh, my baby's eaten all of these and the vast majority of the babies will not be Allergenic and will not be showing any signs or symptoms of food Allergy.

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And then you can move on with peace of mind. Now, If, you don't offer the food. You don't know if the baby has the allergy, right? The only way to know if your baby is allergenic to a food is to feed them that food. And I know parents get so scared like, oh my gosh, Katie like you're telling me to introduce a food to my baby. That could potentially cause an Allergenic reaction. I want you to know that while food allergies are certainly very serious, that death from anaphylaxis in infancy from foods is almost all but unheard of. The older your child gets, the more severe the anaphylactic reaction will be if and when they encounter that food to which their body is allergic. But in infancy, if your baby has an allergic reaction, you learn what the signs of allergic reaction are, you learn how to react to them.

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And if your baby moves on to diagnosis of food Allergy, then you do not offer that food plain and simple. But again, you don't know if your baby's allergenic to food unless you offer them that food. And we recommend doing them, as I mentioned early and often certainly getting them done before 11 months of age. And we, it's just not like a one and done thing. Like you don't just get to feed your baby shrimp once and be like, oh, cool. They're not allergenic to the food. Because if your baby is going to have an allergic reaction, it will almost certainly occur on the second or subsequent exposure. Now, there's lots of different ways that children can be environmentally exposed to different allergens. Oftentimes it will be through food. We have a lot of environmental exposures as well.

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So we want repeat exposures to these foods. That's why we continue to introduce new foods day by day by day. And we do all the new Allergenic foods, but we also reintroduce those foods so that they become familiar foods. So don't just do it once. You gotta do it early and often. In our program, we do the Allergenic food twice on Friday, twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday. No other new foods across the weekend. But you do continue to expose the baby to the familiar foods across the weekend, but we just don't do two new allergenic foods at the same time. Right? Because if your baby was going to have a reaction to a food and you did two new Allergenic foods at the same time, how would you know which one they're Allergenic to? One other thing regarding the timing of allergenic foods, again, the order doesn't matter, but when it comes to timing, if your baby is going to have an Allergenic reaction to food, the vast majority of allergic reactions will occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion.

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Okay? So you do need to observe your baby for about two hours following the ingestion of the potentially allergenic food. Okay? It's not like your baby eats egg and then three days later as like a weird diaper or vomiting, you're like, oh my gosh, they're totally Allergenic to egg. The vast majority of reactions will occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours. So for families that eat later in the day, I recommend not trying the allergenic food late, late in the day if you're gonna go to bed and the baby's gonna go to bed and no one's observing for that two hour window. But other than that, the timing really doesn't matter. If, you are interested in following the particular sequence of foods in order to get all nine of the allergenic foods in early and often. My program Baby-Led Weaning. with Katie Ferraro has a hundred first Foods content library with lots of information on how to safely prepare each of these allergenic foods for the different ages and stages, right?

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Because we don't, like the mom that wanted to start shrimp was six months of age. We don't give a six month old a piece of plain shrimp, okay? That is a huge choking hazard and they don't have the skillset to safely chew and swallow that. But there are certainly ways that we can modify and recipes that you can use to make shrimp safe for your baby and other shellfish as early as six months of age. They're all inside of the program, which you can check out at babyledweaning dot co slash program. I'll link it up in the Shownotes as well, which you can find at BLWpodcast.com/401. Oh my gosh, we're past 400 episodes. All of the episodes are on our website at BLWpodcast.com. A special thank you to our sponsors at AirWave Media If, you guys like podcasts that feature food and science, and using your brain, check out some of the offerings from AirWave Media.

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Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time. Like a lot of moms out there, I will totally admit I am quite Type A. I am a total task master and one of my weekly work tasks is to review the feedback forms that are new students in my program, which is called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro that they leave for us. So basically this form asks a lot of questions about you and your baby and your baby's feeding and medical history, any concerns that you might have or fears about starting solid foods. And all of this data helps me when I'm answering parent questions inside of our weekly live office hours, so I can then tailor my response to your particular baby and situation, right?

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Because it's not a one size fits all approach when it comes to what your baby's eating, right? Because maybe your baby has an egg allergy or another mom in the program. She might really be struggling with how to make meat safe 'cause she doesn't like to cook. So this week on the form, there's a new mom named Janine and she wrote, and this is her quote, I researched a lot on the internet and I have a lot of books. I saw a lot of other Baby-Led Weaning programs, but in the end, this is the one that I realized is what I'm really looking for as a new mom. I love that Katie's program has a community and that there are videos for everything you need to know and how to make the foods. And what I love the most is that there's already a meal plan ready? And this just like stopped my heart because this is exactly why I created the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program.

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I wanted to literally put everything that you need to know about starting solid foods safely in one place with a super easy to follow 20 full weeks meal plan. Okay? There's 20 weeks 'cause it's five foods a week. I want your baby to get to those a hundred new foods before they turn one. 'cause I also know you have a lot going on as a new mom and hunting and pecking all over the internet to try to figure out what am I gonna feed this baby That is not the solution. So If, you want to check out the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program. I would be honored to work with you and your baby. You can head to baby led weaning dot co to get started and hopefully I'll be reading your feedback soon too.