{"id":35313,"date":"2025-08-31T21:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T21:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35313\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T21:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T21:55:08","slug":"greater-focus-on-allergy-prevention-by-nhs-needed-to-protect-children-mp-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35313\/","title":{"rendered":"Greater focus on allergy prevention by NHS needed to protect children \u2013 MP \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NHS should place greater focus on allergy prevention so more children can live safer, healthier lives, an MP has said.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s Becky Gittins is pressing the Government to review advice which recommends babies are weaned earlier if they show signs of developing an allergy.<\/p>\n

The NHS currently recommends introducing solid foods to babies from around six months of age, when they are seen as being developmentally ready.<\/p>\n

However, some research suggests weaning babies sooner can significantly reduce the risk of developing allergic conditions.<\/p>\n

\"I’m<\/a>\"Epping<\/a><\/p>\n

The Journal Of Allergy And Clinical Immunology found introducing an allergen into a baby\u2019s diet when they are between four and six-months-old reduced the risk by 77%.<\/p>\n

Additionally, a study by King\u2019s College London in 2024 found regularly feeding children peanuts from infancy until the age of five reduced the rate of peanut allergy by 71%.<\/p>\n

Rates of allergic diseases, such as asthma, hay fever, and food allergies have been on the rise in the UK.<\/p>\n

Around two children in every classroom have a food allergy, according to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). And the Food Standards Agency (FSA) estimates that at least 6% of adults in the UK have a diagnosed food allergy.<\/p>\n

The Babies and Infants (Allergy Guidance) Bill, which will be presented by Ms Gittins to the Commons on Tuesday, aims to raise awareness of prevention, early intervention, and calls for a review of current guidance to ensure healthcare professionals feel empowered to provide targeted advice.<\/p>\n

The Clwyd East MP said: \u201cI\u2019ve got a particular personal interest in this at the moment, not only because I\u2019ve got a severe anaphylactic nut allergy myself, but I\u2019m also pregnant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve found there\u2019s a bit of a gap in terms of our advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I want to talk about allergies, I need to go to an allergy specialist. If I want to talk about pregnancy, I need to go to a midwife or a GP. We need to do more to treat allergies in the primary care setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Gittins said her life had been \u201cmassively affected by my severe food allergies \u2013 where I can travel, opportunities I can take, social things\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added that current NHS advice, which is to start weaning from six months, is \u201cstill the best advice\u201d for most children, but those at higher risk of allergy should be treated differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat people need to know is that if your child is suffering with severe eczema, if your child is showing signs of early allergy, that actually there\u2019s probably a slightly more tailored route towards infant feeding and weaning that can be helpful in your circumstance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about taking allergy, which is so common, out of that specialist space, where it\u2019s been for so long, and making sure that our sort of primary care practitioners are empowered to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Half of participants in the King\u2019s College London study were asked to regularly consume peanuts from infancy until the age of five, while the other half were asked to avoid peanuts during that period.<\/p>\n

Researchers found that by age 12 or older, 15.4% of the children who avoided peanuts had a peanut allergy, while only 4.4% of those who ate peanuts from an early age did.<\/p>\n

This study built on the Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (Leap) clinical trial, which also showed consumption reduced prevalence of the allergy in children under one.<\/p>\n

Ms Gittins said she had previously been given outdated advice because the \u201conus on training of allergy at primary care just isn\u2019t there\u201d.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cI can go and ask the right questions and knock on the right doors, but if I didn\u2019t have this knowledge already, and my child was showing signs of early allergy or eczema, going to the GP would not necessarily put me on the prevention track.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s the thing that we ultimately need to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charity Allergy UK is calling for the introduction of specialist allergy nurses and dietitians within primary care services.<\/p>\n

Tanya Ednan-Laperouse, founder of The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, said:\u00a0\u201cParents need clear and consistent advice about how and when to wean and feed their infant, to reduce the chance of their baby developing food allergies.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently there are different opinions about weaning, leaving many parents uncertain about what\u2019s best for their child.<\/p>\n

\u201cFood allergies have a huge impact on the lives not just of those with the allergy, but their families too. What we really want is to prevent food allergies from developing in the first place,\u00a0which is why it is particularly important that the right guidance is in place for those children that show signs of eczema or egg allergy in the first few months of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cClear advice to parents on weaning and introducing allergens into the diet, based on scientific evidence, could help to achieve this goal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHS should place greater focus on allergy prevention so more children can live safer, healthier lives, an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[2904,27457,27456,18,135,19,17,27458,790,1294],"class_list":{"0":"post-35313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-allergy","9":"tag-becky-gittins","10":"tag-commons","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-peanut","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-uk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}