Katie Ferraro (1s):

So when it comes to introducing our babies to shellfish, shellfish is surprisingly one of the more common pediatric food allergies, but I find it's the one that parents are least inclined to offer because they themselves are not always comfortable making shellfish. It's really easy to do for babies. Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor, and mama of seven specializing in baby led weaning. Here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy podcast I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leaving you with the competence and knowledge you need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (44s):

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the baby led weaning made easy podcast. I'm your host, Katie Ferraro and today's episode is all about shellfish. How to introduce your baby to this potentially allergenic food. Now, shellfish is one of the big eight allergenic foods, meaning the eight foods that account for about 90% of food allergy and fish is also a big eight one. So we did a separate episode on fish. Now we're talking about shellfish shellfish, even though it is one of the most common pediatric food allergies. I find it's the one that parents are least inclined to offer to their babies early and often. And maybe that's because we're not super comfortable preparing shrimp or scallops at home, or it's not a food that we normally eat and make at home, but I've got a couple of tips for you on a really easy way, how you can do that for your baby to make it safe and make it possible for the baby to self feed.

Katie Ferraro (1m 40s):

So hang tight. We're going to get into that in a second, a little bit about shellfish, as far as statistics go. I mentioned that shellfish are one of the big eight allergenic foods. Okay. So we do want to do these early and often. And there are two categories of shellfish there's for example, crustacean, which are like shrimp and crab and lobster. And the reactions from the crustacea tend to be more pronounced than those from mollusks and most of the other category of shellfish. So clams and mussels and oysters and scallops, and not all people will react to both in one particular study, they showed only a 14% cross-reactivity meaning if you are allergic to crustacean, they also had established allergy to mollusk.

Katie Ferraro (2m 22s):

So we generally recommend introducing these foods early and often, and then parents will say, well, how many grams of shellfish protein should I introduce to my baby? How many times in order for it to quote unquote, count as an exposure. And I want you guys to know that we don't know the answer to that. Okay. The guidance on allergy introduction, it's almost purposefully vague introduce these foods early and often. So in my five-step feeding framework, I introduce five new foods per week to the baby. Monday to Thursday, I do the low risk foods, one new fruit on Monday, a new vegetable on Tuesday, a new starch on Wednesday, a new protein on Thursday. But on Friday I introduce a food from the challenge category. The challenge category includes the big eight allergenic foods, plus some of the trickier textures and more complex flavor profiles.

Katie Ferraro (3m 6s):

But the first eight weeks of baby led weaning, I go right through those big eight allergenic foods week nine. I do Sesame. Sesame's not one of the big eight, but Sesame allergy is on the rise. We're going to do a Sesame specific episode very soon for you. I already have a podcast episode for all seven of the other big eight allergenic foods and shellfish we're listing as number eight, but it's still important to do early and often, I generally will introduce foods to a baby. They have at six to seven months, one to two times a day at eight to nine months. I like to see the baby eating two to three times a day. So if you're doing the big eight allergenic foods within the first eight weeks of feeding solids, your baby's eating at least two times a day is what we generally say. So I like to introduce that allergenic food twice in that day on Friday, I'll do shrimp.

Katie Ferraro (3m 51s):

I like to do shrimp patties and I'll explain how I do that in a second, but I'll do that twice in one day on Friday. I'll do it twice on Saturday. I'll do the shellfish twice on Sunday with no other new foods in between, because yes, we do want to build in a pad between the introduction of the allergenic foods in order to observe for any reaction, but there's nothing harmful or unsafe about introducing a low-risk food, one new food per day. But again, when you get to Friday and you're doing the allergenic food, don't do any other new foods for the next few days. Monday, I go right back to introducing a new food. But Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'll do that shellfish and observe for any potential reaction. Now, please keep in mind that the reaction to a potentially allergenic food, if it does cause a reaction, it will often be on the second or subsequent exposure.

Katie Ferraro (4m 35s):

So some parents are like, yeah, I gave my baby shrimp once we did that, boom, knock it off the list. That is, it doesn't really work that way. You do need to do it a number of times. So I think five or six times over the course of a weekend is adequate to count for early and often. I'll tell you guys a story real quick though. I'm with one of my quadruplets, when they were babies, we had done shrimps. I like to do shrimp in patties. I'll produce shrimp in the food processor with a few other ingredients. And I'll link to the recipes that I use on the show notes for this episode, which is blwpodcast.com/ 41. And I did shrimp from the babies, the quadruplets a couple of times. And then I remember we went to a super bowl party when they were just about one year old and we'd had ceviche there.

Katie Ferraro (5m 17s):

So I gave him some ceviche on some crackers. And within the hour, one of my quadruplets, Dylan, he had well looked like welts on his face. And he was saying, he was kind of like complaining and you could tell, oh gosh, he's got like a little rash around his face. So he had some children's Benadryl at the house we were at. And I got some I'd called his pediatrician. I knew his dose based on his weight. It went away, no big deal, but he had had shrimp four or five times prior to that. And yet one time he reacted to it. Now he also happened to be it with like cold and flu season. He happened to be sick at the same time. And I was talking to the pediatrician. I was like, do you think this is true food allergy? Because I had then given him shellfish a few more times that weekend with the Benadryl close by just to see if he would react.

Katie Ferraro (5m 58s):

And he did it. And the pediatrician said, no, very unlikely for him. Your kids have no other food allergies, very low risk. I'm not even going to test, went away with Benadryl. Didn't react on subsequent exposures. But sometimes when children are immunocompromised, like he was already sick with some kind of snotty cold stuff that they'll be more inclined to react to certain foods. And he was only one at the time, whenever we have any sort of shellfish now he's like, mom, I can't eat this. Do you remember when I was a baby? The one time it turned my face red? Like you don't, you can't possibly remember that. But I feel like maybe I tell that story. And now in his head he thinks he remembers it, but he's able to eat shellfish with no problem. But again, he'd already had it a few times before he had this little reaction. So don't expect it to always occur.

Katie Ferraro (6m 38s):

If there is a reaction on the first exposure, if you guys are interested in learning more about that, five-step feeding framework that I was talking about. I teach a free online workshop every week called baby led weaning for beginners. It's all about how to get your baby to eat 100 foods before turning one, without you having to spoonfeed purees or buy pouches, a link to the workshop signup in the show notes for this episode, that's BLW podcast.com/ 41. Everyone on that free baby led weaning for beginners workshop gets a copy of my hundred first foods list. So you can start knocking out these hundred different foods, including the big eight allergenic foods for your baby. But back to the shrimp, the way I like to do it is in a shrimp Patty.

Katie Ferraro (7m 21s):

So I'll make like Thai style, shrimp, cakes, cakes, or patties or fritters, whatever you want to call them. I puree or I process the ingredients in a food processor, not puree. I chop it up very fine. You could do it without a food processor, working into a Patty form, fry it, cut those into strips that the baby can then scoop or rake up and feed themselves. It is fine to feed a baby shrimp or scallops. They're more rubbery textures and they certainly can be more challenging. I do that once the baby has at least one tooth or more teeth and has tried a variety of different textures in the second week of baby led weaning. When I'm doing isolated soft foods, I would not give a baby shrimp at six months of age who doesn't have teeth and who hasn't tried very many foods. So if you go to my Instagram page, baby led wean team and you go to the top, it's a highlights for the a hundred first foods.

Katie Ferraro (8m 6s):

Shrimp is day 39. And if you click into the shrimp highlight, you can see a bunch of videos of how different families prepared shrimp and shellfish for their babies. Mostly using shrimp though, I did a Thai style shrimp cake. There's another mom on there. She made the shrimp patties with cilantro and lemon juice. She did some egg and oat flour. Again, if it has multiple ingredients, we're generally feeding those to older babies or eight months of age or older, but there's also some older babies on their eating, like just the actual shrimp. One mom made it with olive oil and lemon and dill. Again, I think seeing really is believing. So rather than explaining all of these recipes to you on a podcast, just go to Instagram, baby led weaning team, check out day 39 of the a hundred first foods content.

Katie Ferraro (8m 49s):

You can either check it out in the highlights up top on my Instagram, or if you scroll all the way back in my feed, I started this page out with the a hundred first foods content three posts per day. Again, that's food number 39 is shrimp. tons of great ideas there on how you can make patties or make fritters fry them up, serve them to your baby who can then self-feed. So I hope you guys enjoyed learning briefly about shellfish the show notes again, for this episode, with everything that I mentioned linked up is at blwpodcast.com slash 41. Thanks for listening guys. Bye now!