Cove Pure (0s):
You've put serious thought into every food that goes into your baby's mouth. But there's one ingredient in almost everything that most parents have never looked at and that's water. And it's why my family and I switched to Cove Pure to purify our water. And I know as parents, especially when you're starting solid foods, there's already a lot to think about, right? Is this food safe and did I cut it the right way? Is my baby getting enough iron? Are we doing allergens correctly? But then you start thinking about how much water is actually involved in what we do every day, like water for drinking and cooking and rinsing your produce and you're making your tea or your coffee and water for bottles if that's part of your routine. But here's what the research shows. 176 million Americans have drinking water that is tested as positive for PFAS or forever chemicals. Those are the manmade chemicals used in food packaging and non-stick cookware and fire fighting foam. And scientists call them forever Chemicals 'cause once they're in your body, they stay there and they don't break down. And what I didn't know until recently is that PFAS crossed the placenta during pregnancy. They passed through breast milk and a recent study found that by the time a baby's 12 months old exposure to these chemicals, it's already interfering with how babies build immunity. Now If you have one of those picture filters at home, that's a start. But standard picture filters, don't remove PFAS. You need something more powerful than that. And that's exactly what Cove Pure is. It uses clear wave reverse Osmosis Technology Lab certified to remove up to 99.9% of contaminants PFAS lead fluoride pharmaceuticals. It filters out particles far smaller than a strand of hair. And it sits right on your counter. So no plumber, no drilling, just plug it in. And something that I love is that Cove Pure lets you select whatever temperature you want. So if that's hot water for tea or warm for bottles or cold water for the gym, you just tap a button And honestly, the water just tastes cleaner. 'cause you know when water has that little like tap water taste and you don't really notice it till it's gone. That was the biggest difference for us. You're already doing the work to give your baby the best possible Start. Your water is part of that. And in honor of America's 250 Birthday Cove Pure is giving our listeners $250 off right now. For a limited time, go to cove pure.com/weaning. That's C-O-V-E-P-U-R e.com/weaning to get it.

Thrive Training Institute (2m 11s):
Now, quick question. If your baby started choking on food in their highchair today, would you know exactly what to do? I know it's not a fun thing to think about, but choking is the most common fear that parents have when they're getting ready to start solid foods. The good news is that research shows that there is no higher risk of choking with baby Led Weaning compared to conventional adult-led spoonfeeding. But that's only true provided that parents know how to reduce choking risk. So choking is still a rare but a very real possibility. And that's why I recommend that every adult who helps feed your baby takes an infant refresher CPR course before you start solid foods. I personally take an online CPR course every quarter to stay current. I've partnered with my friend Brandon from Thrive Training Institute. We've actually created a choking prevention and and response course alongside another speech language pathologist. So I've got a lot of options for families. If you're really, really anxious about starting solid foods. So know wherever you fall on the spectrum, I do wanna make sure that you at least get current on CPR along with everyone else who helps feed your baby. Whether that's your partner, your husband, your babysitter, your mother-in-law. If you've been putting off learning about CPR because you don't know where to start, Brandon and his team at Thrive offer a very, very affordable option. And the code Katie 10 works for an additional $10 off. So If you head to this website, bit lee slash blw thrive, that's BIT LY slash BW thrive, you can see all the courses we have and the code KD 10 works for discounts on all of them.

0 (3m 48s):
So this recommendation of, oh, you need to wait three to five days between new foods in order to observe for a reaction is asinine because the vast majority of food allergy reactions, if they're going to occur, are gonna happen within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion. So like If you were to do sesame, let's say you make the black sesame finger foods from the program and you feed it to your baby. It's not like three days later they have a weird diaper and you're like, oh my gosh, they're allergic to sesame. That's not how it works. So waiting the three to five days is completely unnecessary. You're slowing your baby down, you're preventing their progress towards diet diversity. It's perfectly safe to do one or even more than one new food per day. We just don't do two new allergenic foods for the first time on the same day.

0 (4m 33s):
Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby Led Weaning here on the baby Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, giving you the confidence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby Led Weaning. What if my baby has a food allergy but I don't know it yet. Like what If you offer peanut or egg or shrimp and then your baby has a reaction to that food? What if you're supposed to be doing these foods early and often, but honestly you're just scared to start if that's where your brain goes when you hear the words allergenic foods as it pertains to your baby, you are not alone.

0 (5m 21s):
I recently hosted a live food allergy q and a 'cause I could like sense the stress for the parents who are in my program. It's called Baby Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro, but it should be called like allergy stress for all parents. And I just wanted to share some of the actual questions that parents submitted about Introducing Allergenic Foods, Food allergies and allergic reactions. 'cause if they were having them then you're probably having the questions were so good. I wanted to share 'em here on the podcast because Food allergies are serious, right? And I know that offering allergenic foods can feel like one of the most intimidating parts of starting solid foods. But here's the deal, right? Offering your baby these allergenic foods early and often.

0 (6m 2s):
It's actually the only thing you can do to help lower your baby's risk of food allergy down the road. So the goal is not to wing it. Our goal is I want you to have system inside of My program BABY led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. I show you exactly how to make a hundred foods safe for your baby before they turn one. But we also walk you through how to do all of the top nine allergenic foods and you do them over and over and over. 'cause it's not just a one and done thing. Like you don't just get to do shrimp once and say, oh my baby's not allergic to shellfish. That's not how it works. 'cause I don't want you standing there in your kitchen wondering like, Ooh, how am I supposed to do shellfish for a six month old?

0 (6m 42s):
We just take the stress out of it. 'cause I know you got a lot on your plate right now. I'm gonna take that mental load off for you. So If you wanna check out the program, there's a $50 off discount code wherever you're listening to or watching this in the description, check it out, baby Led Weaning dot co slash program. But I wanna go ahead and dive in to this. Ask Me Anything episode all about safely Introducing Allergenic Foods. Alright, the first question was from Tamara C, which allergenic food should I introduce first? This is a great question, Tamara, because there is no right or wrong answer here. Here's the deal with the allergenic foods. We call them the top nine allergenic foods.

0 (7m 23s):
Those are the nine foods that account for about 90% of food allergy down the road. Now it does not matter which one you introduce first. I have done all nine of them first with lots of different babies just to prove that you can. But also there's no data that says you gotta start with peanut egg or milk. I will tell you milk, egg and peanut are the three most common pediatric Food allergies. So sometimes families are like, I don't care. We we can start with them If you want to. We just don't do two new allergenic foods for the first time at the same time. And here's why. Because if your baby had never had peanut and egg and then you offered those foods together and then your baby had a reaction, how would you know which of the allergenic foods the baby was reacting to?

0 (8m 6s):
Right? So we do the foods, we do one a week for the first nine weeks, but we do 'em early and often. So we're doing over and over. We do about seven different introductions in the first nine weeks. So at the end of week nine. So when you've gotten to food 45 in my program of the a hundred First Foods program, you've already done all of the allergenic foods and then we have ways that we're continuing to reintroduce them. So it doesn't really matter. Pick whichever one you want. Sometimes I do kind of prioritize egg though. 'cause those of you who are in my program know there's tons of fritter recipes in there and especially for the whole grains, egg helps hold everything together. It acts as a binding agent in those fritter recipes. So I love to just get past egg early on. 'cause then we can use egg in a lot of the recipes.

0 (8m 47s):
So If you don't care which one to start with, do egg. Another pro tip, if your baby's had formula, you've already passed cow's milk, right? Because cow's milk protein, cow's milk. Milk is the base of commercial infant formula. But if your baby's exclusively breastfed, they haven't had cow's milk protein yet. So you might get that one in the litter earlier If you wanted to, but it doesn't matter. Great question. Next question number two from Millie. How much of an allergenic food should I offer? The first time I've taken advanced training in pediatric allergy courses and I told the instructors who are also my friends, I'm like, you should just call this like gray area. Like the entire class is gray area. There's so much about Food allergies that's really not known. And sometimes when I'm answering food allergy questions I'm like, doesn't really matter. We don't really know.

0 (9m 27s):
There's no data on that. More research is needed. But how much of the allergenic food should you offer for the first time? It doesn't really matter because your baby is unlikely to react the first time you offer them that food. You're kind of priming the pump the first time they're exposed to it. Babies are most likely to react on the second or the subsequent time. And that's why we do the allergenic food multiple times. So in our program we do five new foods a week, a new fruit on Monday, a new vegetable on Tuesday, a starchy food on Wednesday, a protein food on Thursday, and an allergenic food on Friday. And we do that allergenic food twice on Friday, twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday. No other new foods across the weekend, but you continue to reintroduce familiar foods from previous days.

0 (10m 7s):
So by the end of the weekend, the babies had six different exposures. Sometimes they eat the litter, sometimes they eat a lot, sometimes they eat nothing. Sometimes they smash it in their ear. But the point is, If you average it out over about six times, they've gotten the litter bit of that protein into their mouth. Now we're gonna continue to reintroduce that protein in future days as well because as they get more proficient at self feeding, they will ingest more of that protein. And when it comes to the reactions, it is dose dependent. You've got to get something into the system in order to trigger the reaction if there is indeed going to be a reaction. So sometimes the parents will say, well my baby already had egg a bunch of times and then they reacted on like the seventh time we did it. It's like, well the first six times you did it, they might not really have had that much.

0 (10m 49s):
So we don't do it in perpetuity. But the point is we're gonna keep it in the rotation for a while if that answers your question. Alright, next question, Chelsea. My doctor says I need to wait three to five days between new foods so I can watch for a reaction. But in your program we're doing one new food per day. What gives Chelsea the recommendation to wait three to five days between new foods is outdated? Old wives tale, you don't need to do it. Here's what the research shows us. If your baby's going to have an allergic reaction to a food, those vast majority of those reactions will occur within minutes and up to no more than two hours following ingestion. So what that means is you don't need to wait three to five days between new foods. It's not like you're gonna offer your baby sesame, let's say.

0 (11m 30s):
And we have these black sesame finger foods the wheat make. It's not like you're gonna do that. And then three days later your baby has a weird diaper and you're like, oh my gosh, they're allergic to sesame. It's gonna happen within two hours. So there's absolutely no need to wait three to five days between new foods. That's unnecessary long period of time, which slows down your baby's progression towards diet diversity. So it's perfectly safe to do one or even more than one new food in a day. We just don't do two new allergenic foods for the first time at the same time as I explained earlier. Alright, next question from Charlotte. My baby tried tomatoes and got red patches around her mouth. Does that mean she's allergic? Ooh, no. Your baby is not allergic. That sounds like atopic dermatitis. Your babies get rashes for lots of different reasons, especially from acidic foods.

0 (12m 13s):
Okay, so we just recently did an episode on does the pH of the food that my baby eats matters. I'll link to that in the show notes. But the reality is tomatoes are not going to cause a food allergy. All right? Tomatoes are not one of the top nine allergenic foods. There's not even any protein in tomatoes to cause an allergy. It would be incredibly rare for someone to be actually truly allergic to tomatoes, okay? And foods are going to cause reactions on your baby, especially on their skin and especially when they're drooling. When situations like this happening happen, whether I'm working with a family inside of my course or if they're we're doing parent coaching together and I say, is the baby drooling? More often than not, the answer is yes. Okay, your baby's teething. Okay? Starting solid foods doesn't happen in a vacuum or a bubble, right?

0 (12m 55s):
Lots of other stuff is going on. And especially when they're drooling and you get that drool going all over the side of their mouth 'cause they're teething And that comes into contact with the new food, especially if there's s the litter bit of eczema or some breakage in the skin, that can sometimes cause a flare up, okay? But if there's skin involvement on its own And it goes away on its own and it's not accompanied by any other sign of allergic reaction, then it absolutely is not a sign of true food allergy. Now, if the baby has hives that then spread or is full body hives associated or accompanied by another sign of allergic reaction, like difficulty or labored breathing, profuse vomiting, diarrhea, market change in demeanor. If the skinso is accompanied by one of those, okay, then we're paying attention And it possibly could be a true food allergy, but just some redness on the face goes away on its own.

0 (13m 42s):
No need to worry. Hey, we're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right back. All right, Kelsey, my son did a hundred, I know who his mom is. My son did your a hundred First Foods program, no problem with any allergens. And then he got a tree nut allergy at two. So now I'm scared to do this with my baby who just turned six months. Okay? So the only thing you can do as a parent to lower your baby's risk of food allergy is to offer your baby allergenic foods early and often. So I know this mom, Kelsey, we did a hundred First Foods with her older son, Mav. He did all of the allergenic foods before 11 months, and the research shows us that that protective window closes around 11 months of age.

0 (14m 27s):
So we got 'em all in. He did a bunch of them. She did everything she possibly could to lower the risk of food allergy. She herself does have a food allergy. I know that 'cause I know this family and he still got a food allergy. Is that her fault? Absolutely not. Just because a first degree relative has a food allergy doesn't necessarily mean that the baby is going to have a food allergy. Now that baby is at higher risk. But that baby wasn't actually in the high risk category, especially for peanut, for developing a food allergy. But he did happen to develop a food allergy down the road. They knew exactly what to do, he was treated appropriately. He's being seen by an allergist and they avoid tree nuts with this new baby who's just starting solid foods. I know that baby's exclusively breastfed.

0 (15m 8s):
Okay? So that baby hasn't had any of the potential allergens. We're going to proceed the same exact way home introduction of the allergenic foods one at a time in developmentally appropriate ways for the baby to feed to themselves. And we're gonna get them all in before that baby turns 11 months of age. So I know it might sound scary, but again, the only thing you can do to lower your baby's risk of food allergy is to introduce those allergenic foods early and often. And the only thing that puts your baby at the high risk for peanut allergy at this point is if that baby has severe eczema and or egg allergy. And again, I know this family, that baby does not have severe eczema, that baby does not have an established egg allergy er go.

0 (15m 48s):
We proceed per the protocol home introduction of the allergenic foods starting around six months of age. Sorry Kelsey, you don't get out of it. We're gonna do it again. All right, next question from Fatima. I'm scared about reactions. Can I just test for everything before trying to be sure? I think she means food allergy test. Wouldn't it be nice just to know, oh well maybe if he's never gonna have a food allergy because I took this test, guess what? 50% of all positive food allergy test results are false positives. We just had Dr. Skuas nationally recognized pediatric food allergy expert from Nationwide Children's on, he did a whole episode on false positives talking about this phenomenon. There is so much misuse of food allergy testing.

0 (16m 30s):
Don't waste your money. You only ever want to test for a food allergy to a food that your baby has reacted to in the past. Because again, if your baby hasn't reacted to it, 50% chance a flip of a coin basically that the result is going to be a positive or it's going to be a false positive. So again, If you can't replicate the reaction, okay, and most doctors are gonna tell you, you always check with your doctor, but well, can you replicate the reaction If the baby has a reaction when you try that food again, then maybe we suspect food allergy. Not to reduce the severity or not to downplay how serious Food allergies really are. They are serious. But remember, death from anaphylaxis from food in infancy is almost all but unheard of.

0 (17m 12s):
Food allergy reactions get much more severe the older the child gets. It's just another reason why you want to be doing these foods early and often. So no, you don't blanket test. You never test for a food that your baby has not already reacted to. Another question, I don't know who ans asked this one. I've never made shrimp or shellfish. What's an easy way to do that Food. These are parents are in my program. So If you go to the allergenic food section of the hundred FIRST FOODS contact library, scroll down to that food, then you'll see the phase one recipes. You'll see the phase two recipes. You can see the videos, you can see the pictures of what the foods look like. But my, one of my favorite ways to do shrimp, because we don't do just like rubbery pieces of shrimp for early eaters, that's a huge choking hazard. But there's a great shrimp cakes recipe.

0 (17m 55s):
So it's kinda like crab cakes. But you basically take the shrimp, you pulverize it in your food processor, you can chop it up. We mix it with Panko, which is Japanese style breadcrumbs. They just tend to be a lot lower in sodium than Italian or traditional style. But there's some seasonings that go in there. We mix it with an egg. So you're hearing some other allergens in the right egg, the wheat from the Panko. But this is for babies who've already passed those other potentially allergenic foods. So this is a phase two or phase three recipe. We do this in the second or the third eight weeks of the program, which we know the baby's already passed egg. You mix it all up, you fry it like just the litter fritter or the litter like you would a crab cake essentially until that shrimp is cooked, you cut it into little pieces that the baby can pick up and feed to themselves. I got a lot of other really cool shellfish recipes in there at this point.

0 (18m 36s):
'cause shellfish is definitely the hardest category. Most families are least confident about cooking shellfish. So I spent the most time making the most awesome shellfish finger foods for your babies in there. Again, If you wanna check out that program, baby Led Weaning dot co slash program, there's a discount code in the description where you're listening to this podcast. We've had a lot of families join from the podcast lately, so I know you guys are listening and finding that code, which is good. Save yourself some money, get started making all these foods for your baby. Alright, here's the last question we're gonna do today. This is from Cameron. I know you teach to offer allergenic foods early and often, but once my baby tolerates an allergenic food, do I have to keep offering it? Okay, you don't have to do anything but the guidance, which is purposely vague.

0 (19m 16s):
I know this is frustrating parents like, can't you just tell me how much of the food and how often to offer? It's like I could, but then I'd be making it up because there's absolutely no research that tells us exactly how much of these foods or how often to be doing them. So the guidance is early and often, and you gotta remember that babies don't react on the first exposure, So you need to do it at least twice and preferably more than that so that the baby gets the appropriate dose that they would require even though we don't know what that is, which means you need to keep offering it as your baby gets more proficient at eating so that they get enough, even though we don't know how much that is, meaning that they chew and swallow some of the components to get it into their system to trigger that reaction if there is indeed going to be one. And you do that enough times and then they don't have a reaction and that's how you know they don't have a food allergy.

0 (19m 60s):
So my suggestion is to keep following that pattern of doing that new allergenic food twice on Friday, twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday, as part of that five step feeding framework that you're following in that program. Alright guys, well thank you for all of the food allergy questions. I am gonna be doing more of the live q and as inside of the program because I like all of your questions and keep giving me feedback on the recipes. If you haven't joined the program yet, check out that discount code. Check it out at baby Led Weaning dot co slash program. If you don't have the hundred FIRST FOODS list yet, if you're like, what is she talking about? Where are all these foods coming from? Grab a copy of my original hundred FIRST FOODS list. I give it away to everybody on my free masterclass called Baby Led Weaning for Beginners.

0 (20m 41s):
It's one hour online video training where I show you like the basics of baby Led Weaning. If you stick around to the end, I send you the hundred First Foods list, print it off, put it on your fridge, start checking those foods off. Do one allergenic food a week for your baby, and in the first nine weeks, you'll be done with all of them and moving your way towards reducing your baby's risk of food allergy. I will put the resources from today's podcast up on the show notes, which you can find@bwpodcast.com slash 1 2 8, and a special thank you to our partners at Airwave Media. If you guys like podcasts that feature food and science and using your brain, check out some of our podcasts at Airwave Media. There's other podcasts there by other podcasters who also like science.

0 (21m 22s):
I'm online@bwpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.