What You Can Do to Prevent Your Child's Allergies

Allergic disease is one of the most common chronic diseases and its incidence is increasing year by year. Many ways, methods and treatments for allergies have emerged along with the development of the health world. However, the big question that often arises is can we prevent allergies? Or, do we have to wait for the symptoms to appear first and treat them?

The word allergy comes from Greek, namely allon argon, which means a different / deviant reaction from normal to various stimuli / substances from outside the body, for example to food, dust, drugs and so on (allergens) that can cause disease. Allergens in normal people usually do not cause disease.  There is also the term atopic, which also comes from Greek. Topos which means place, so the word atopos, means out of place. In medicine, it means that the talent for allergies is inherited.  The allergic talent can be prevented from manifesting into disease.

The knowledge of allergy is growing rapidly, resulting in an increasing incidence of allergies, especially those caused by environmental factors.  So the management and treatment are also advancing, and the concept of early prevention and allergen avoidance is the main management.

Knowing the risk of allergy is the first step to prevent allergy, and it is most important to know the presence of allergy from parents.  If both parents have a history of allergy, the risk factor of allergy in children will be large, more than 50 percent.  Likewise, if there is a sibling or one of the parents has a history of allergies, the child will have a risk factor of approximately 30 percent.  Even if both parents or siblings have no history of allergies, the child to be born has a risk of 10 to 20 percent.

Symptoms of allergic diseases that often arise include symptoms of gastrointestinal allergies, skin allergies, and respiratory, nasal and pulmonary allergies. These allergic events do not always occur together, but will follow the allergic march pattern.  So we can predict the incidence of allergies that will occur in children.

Several things can be done to prevent allergies in our future children, which are divided into various phases and age groups.  During pregnancy, mothers should eat a healthy diet that has lots of nutrients and nutrients, and avoid excessive carbohydrates and fats.  Some studies have proven that consuming probiotics will also prevent children from experiencing allergies.

In infancy and toddlerhood, prevention is done by providing breast milk, at least for 6 months.  If the child cannot get breast milk, hypoallergenic milk, fully hydrolyzed milk, soy milk or amino acids can be used.  Introduce baby food at 4 months of age, and there is no need to take a dietary approach to the baby, and keep environmental factors that can trigger allergies away.

Childhood and adolescence, at the age of 4 - 18 years old, food allergies usually begin to diminish / disappear, and we sometimes have to take drugs that can control / reduce symptoms or allergic diseases.  And the most important thing is to keep away from triggering factors, and do regular exercise.

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