This is a contributed post and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Meet The Harris Family.
It can make you feel downright miserable at times if you’ve got allergies. Especially, if you are allergic to most of the common things in the world. It’s just a very annoying thing to deal with. And while we, as parents can struggle with keeping our allergies under control, it makes you wonder, how can little children cope? It’s got to be 10 times worse for them. But when it comes to helping our children grow up allergy-free, there are some things we can do to desensitize our children to modern allergies. Here are a few.
Dirt Is Their Friend
How often do you find yourself getting the wet wipes out as soon as your child has touched something dirty? The thing is, now, we don’t have much of a tolerance for dirt. As a result, we pass this on to our children. Unfortunately, this is one reason they are going to develop allergies very early on in life. Apart from those two instances where children have allergies and intolerances as soon as they’re born. For the rest, we can help our children build up their immune systems by not being so scared around it. Of course, there’s a limit, but in order for our children to build up their immune systems, they have to be exposed to some of it, rather than living in a bubble.
Introduce Food Allergens As Soon As Possible
Much like introducing a little bit of food into a diet can show up some intolerances, this is the best way to prevent future food allergies in your children. Common food allergies include milk and soya, nuts, wheat or gluten, shellfish and eggs. These are foods that can all be added to your child’s diet as soon as possible with your pediatrician’s permission. This is your best chance of minimizing these problems later on in life. It works the same way as when we have a flu jab because we add a little bit of the virus into our system so that our immune system can fight it off. As with introducing your child to any potential allergen, care is recommended in case your child does have a potentially serious allergic reaction.
Make Your Home As Allergy Free As Possible
While it’s nice to have our home as clean as humanly possible, it’s important that we don’t over-sterilize the home. But at the same time, minimize the allergens commonly found in every home. Dust mites are one of the biggest causes of asthma in children. They are hiding in most carpets. Even if you are a clean freak and make sure that your carpet is vacuumed every week, you might not be getting all of the dust mites up. Or you might be bringing them into the air, which will aggravate asthma symptoms even more.
If your home has air conditioning, it’s advisable to have your filters changed regularly. There are plenty of suppliers locally to you that would be able to do this. Onehourac.com is one that cleans filters, which is a vital part of reducing allergens in the air. Most HVAC systems are fitted with HEPA filters, which are the best out there right now. They are known for trapping a very high amount of allergens in the air. Other ways to do this can include using thin fabrics like curtains and drapes. However, you could also remove the carpet in every room, and replacing it with flooring. There are so many little areas of your home that can hide allergens and not just dust mites, but mold too. By going through your home and looking for the allergen trouble spots, you have a better idea of what you need to get rid of.
Treat The Cause (And The Symptoms)
It’s always better to treat the underlying cause while you are looking for the reason behind it. Unfortunately, your children can suffer from horrible symptoms of allergies. So, instead, you can treat the symptoms of allergies with certain things. Antihistamines are always the first thing that comes to mind, but if you would prefer to go down the natural route, there are many options for you. Wellnessmama.com has many different options for you to treat allergies. Bear in mind that an allergy stems from an imbalance in gut bacteria. For the most part, you can treat this by adding more probiotics into your child’s diet.
You can always purchase a supplement, or have more fermented foods. Fermented foods can include drinks like kombucha (acquired taste, but yummy) and kefir, and whole foods like sauerkraut. These are loaded with probiotics and good bacteria, which can help to treat your gut. In addition to these ways of treating the symptoms, you can then start to address the underlying cause. One way to do this is to remove a certain food item out of your child’s diet for at least a month. Then watch and see if it produces a reaction. You can do this by visiting a nutritionist or by raising the issue with your doctor. However, you know your child better than anyone, so if you keep a close eye out for certain symptoms that might occur after eating specific foods. As this could be the reason for your child’s specific allergy.
Allergy Free Once and For All
There can be many reasons for our children having far more allergies than previous generations. There could very easily be more pollutants in the air and more processed food. Nonetheless, if we are extremely careful to protect our children from germs … that could be a reason too. As a result, we will probably spend more time going back and forth to the doctor’s to treat symptoms that we could potentially get rid of ourselves.
Problems like asthma can be prevented in the most part by more stringent cleaning. However, if we have children who are more prone to certain allergies, this could very well be the result of an imbalance in gut bacteria. And this is, ironically, the result of a poor diet. So, we could all benefit to eat more whole foods and consume more vitamins. By having a more vigilant approach to tackling allergies, we could help our children to become free of allergy once and for all.
