Speaking of children, youngsters tend to have more food allergies than adults. It's never to early to take steps to prevent those food allergies. Even what woman eat during pregnancy can head off eventual sensitivities. ”If you do the right thing early enough, allergies can be controlled,” Dr. Falliers told us. ”I have so many examples. I’ve seen some of the worst asthmatics have three of four very healthy children.”

Food allergies may be passed on to the developing fetus by way of the placenta. Expectant mothers should avoid highly allergic foods or foods to which they know they're allergic. An of course, doing the ”right thing” after childbirth includes breastfeding, if at all possible.

”I’ve found time and time again that children who are nursed for at least the first year or 15 months of life develop substantially fewer allergies,” says Dr. Stigler. ”Starting with the infant, the only milk I want children to have is breast milk.” The longer an infant stays away from cow’s milk, the less apt he or she is to become allergic to milk – or anything else, for that matter.

As we mentioned, withholding cow’s milk from babies’ diets may even prevent nonfood allergies – such as dust and pollen sensitivities. An editorial in the medical journal, Lancet, points out that there’s something about cow’s milk that encourages sensitivity to environmental allergens of all kinds.

Perhaps, suggest the authors, it's because of milk’s effect on the intestine. In any case, they encourage breast feeding in no uncertain terms: ”... children born to allergic parents would be better off without the acquaintance of cow’s milk and dairy products in the first six months.

We must sure that simple practical advice about this now reaches the many parents whose children will be genetically predisposed to allergy” (Lancet, February 12, 1977). ”There’s nothing as good as breast milk,” Dr. Falliers told us, adding, ”I could talk for the next hour about the reasons for breast feeding – not simply to avoid allergy to cow’s milk, but to provide antibodies that help the white cells resist disease.”

”Twenty years ago, I was batting about 50 to 60 percent in getting mothers to breastfeed,” said Dr. Stigler. ”Now, I think I have only two mothers in my practice who are not breastfeeding. So, it's up to 95 percent or better at this point. It's not 100 percent because there’s the uncommon person who doesn’t want to. And there’s the rare person who can’t.”

Suppose the nursing mother has allergies herself? ”If the mother has food allergies, she must avoid allergic food to avoid transmitting her allergies to her baby,” Dr. Stigler told us. Nursing baby may not inherit the same identical allergies. Mom may be allergic to corn and the baby may be allergic to something else.

Even if the mom doesn’t have food allergies, though, what she eats can effect her breastfed baby. ”Wheat comes out in milk. Soy comes out in breast milk. Cow’s milk come out in breast milk,” says Dr. Stigler. ”For example, the colicky breastfed infant is most often allergies to milk – not the mother’s milk but the cow’s milk the mother is drinking. Take the mother off cow’s milk, and the baby is well in two or three days.”

Either way, nursing mothers, like pregnant women, should avoid foods to which they know they are allergic or to which their baby is likely to become allergic – especially cow’s milk. To compensate for that source of calcium, Dr. Stigler asks nursing mother to take the calcium containing supplements routinely prescribed during pregnancy, and to eat other dietary sources of calcium.

When the time comes to introduce solid food into a baby’s diet, don’t blitz the child with several foods at once. Single foods should be added one at a time to check for tolerance before adding subsequent food. A Rotary Diet, in fact, is an excellent way to head off food allergies in children born to allergy prone parents.

”The best answer is for mothers to breastfeed their babies for a full year,” Dr. Randolph told us. ”Then hold back on the speed with which they introduce new foods. And when they do add them, rotate. For instance, instead of feeding a mixed cereal three times a day, give oats once every four days, rice once every four days, wheat once every four days and so on. A Rotary Diet should be used from infancy on.”

In other words, food allergies may run in families – but they don’t have to. Your strategy against food allergies will be all the more successful if you pursue it as a game in which you are pitted against a crafty but not invincible opponent. Using the tactics and ”inside information” given here, you can score a victory.