How to Tell if Your Baby Has Food Allergies

It’s every mom’s worst nightmare: she feeds her baby some sweet morsel — a strawberry, peanut butter — but as soon as he gobbles it up, his face turns red. He starts gasping for air.

Fear of food allergies is rampant among parents for good reason: 1 in every 13 kids is allergic to some food, according to FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education). Luckily the steps are pretty simple for keeping an eye out for food allergies and even lowering the odds of them happening.

For example;

Introduce foods one at a time

To help you home in on any foods that might trigger an allergy in your baby, it’s best to feed him simple, single-ingredients foods to start — that way, if he has a reaction, you know exactly what the culprit is! “Starting around 6 months, the first food offered is usually a single grain cereal like rice cereal, but fruits or vegetables may also be introduced,” says Dr. Bridget Boyd, MD, a pediatrician at Loyola University Health System. If all goes well, try a new food about every three days. Once you know by “taste test” that certain single-ingredient foods are fine, you can start introducing “stage 2” foods that are combos of the above, like cereal mixed with strawberries.

Click Here to tell if your child has a food allergy: