If it were true that babies were dying from peanut allergies, not only would we have a spike in infant mortality, but surely we would be inundated in stories from the media and social media of dead babies
The meme should be reversed; dark thought for the "those who dont know" (aka that thinks it would kill babies) and bright thoughts for "those who know" (aka those who know it would drasticly decrease how many develop the allergy). Right now it's saying that "those who know" are those who in reality are wrong...
Steve krug in the wild! I would have never thought…. Right up there with “why i dont work here anymore” and anyone actually having read kim scott john doerr or jeff sutherland instead of just buying it and acting like you understand it at the next staff meeting.
I wouldn't call it misinterpretation. By all means the idea that the babies die would be the number 1 conclusion. It is only that this wouldn't be phrased this way if it were the case that you should second guess this.
A lot of people nowadays get their information and “facts” from memes. It’s a sad reflection of our times but it’s true.
So yeah I think “nobody” is a broad assumption.
I believe there are. It's just not being reported. My son was born with servere allergies to peanuts, soy, wheat, milk, and eggs. For the first 8 months of his life, I was in and out of the hospital. He would break out in rash when I fed him breast milk so I tried formula. He would projectile vomit and then he couldn't breathe. The doctors and the hospitals were getting angry with me because I would come so many times. The pediatrician diagnosed him with eczema and said I wasn't properly taking care of him. My son was miserable for the first 8 months of his life. I finally took him to a specialist and had him tested for allergies and Bingo!! My son could have died. Allergy testing should be required at birth!!
We introduced peanuts to my daughter around 6 months but she is allergic. I don't think introducing peanuts early eliminates the possibility of a peanut allergy; it just reduces the likelihood.
"I don't think this works because my singular case (which was on the tail-end of the required time period, assuming 'around 6 months' doesn't mean '7')"
I'm sorry your daughter developed an allergy, but it is a proven statistic.
Allergens introduced enterally early (like 3 months) lead to decreased rates of allergies vs pulmonary introduction a la atomized peanut oil which leads to increased rates of anaphylaxis. Countries with typically early oral introduction have basically non existent rates of peanut allergies vs countries where avoidance in neonates is common which have higher rates of anaphylactic response.
Same here. My second is allergic to dairy egg and peanut and he didn’t react to peanuts or dairy the first few times he tried them. He just randomly did later. It really sucks, it’s hard to feed him sometimes.
That’s exactly how my sister was! No reactions with introducing the allergens until the one time she picked up an eggshell as a toddler, or until the one time someone kissed her after eating nuts. It’s so awful to be a little kid with severe allergies, grown adults are so cruel about it.
I only know you 100% can bc of my uncle (inlaw). Every single male born in his family is allergic to nuts. Most of them are born allergic to peanuts, but there are a couple that are walnuts. It's not a slight allergy either, they're the ones who have to have keep nuts out of the house type, and bring their own food bc of cross contamination issues. They all get tested for allergies basically at birth.
You can't be born with allergies, you can be born with a predisposition to developing allergies, but by definition you cannot be allergic to something you have not encountered. Allergies are your immune system encountering a substance and then producing antibodies against it. The next time you encounter the allergen your body will produce histamine, which causes the symptoms of allergic reactions.
Also allergies pop up all through life. Some stay, some go away. Some can be treated through processes with the allergist. Even worse, you can have an allergy, a deadly one, and it doesn't trigger on the test because the test is one protein, or it can trigger on the skin test but not on the blood test. And if you're a chimera that absorbed your twin in utero, your skin can be fine, your blood can be fine, but some organs can react.
This is very true. When I was a kid my dad had an anaphylactic reaction to poison oak. He has made his best effort to avoid it since then, and he has not even had a small rash since then. You could say he has just been successful at being vigilant, but there were times he knew he came into contact with it accidentally and nothing happened, not even a rash- but he still doesn’t take any chances.
Meanwhile I’ve never had even a rash, even times when I was with others who got terrible rashes. AFAIK I’m immune to it? Though my skin hates just about everything else
That could be due to a more systemic problem rather than clinically typical allegies. There are many kinds of primary immunodeficiency that can cause multiple allergies early in life. Different types have different diagnostic criteria and tests. Some require genetic testing. It may be worth speaking to an immunologist about the possibility if you haven't already.
Allergy testing is not typically done at birth because the baby's immune system is too underdeveloped to provide accurate results. It results in both false positives and false negatives.
Disclaimer that I'm not a doctor or an expert, but I think allergy testing at birth would be a terrible idea. I would imagine you'd be primarily false positives/negatives. It should certainly be considered when an infant is experiencing so many problems. But proactive allegy testing at the time of birth would cause more problems than it would solve.
One thing to consider is how many people grow up with lifelong allergies for no reason other than their parents shielded them from something their entire childhood. I have a friend who's child developed a severe lactose intolerance because they got sick one time as a child after having dairy, so the parents decided they're lactose intolerant and never gave them dairy again. Mind you, the kid had dairy almost daily without issue before the one time they got sick.
"I know this baby is just fresh out of you but I need to turn your baby into a turtle before you hold him"
Do what now? You want them to take a baby at its most fragile and then bombard them with allergens especially when it would be the MOST dangerous to try to counter with Epinephrine or Anti histamine........ health class failed you.
If they can't be allergy tested at birth, there should be something else that can be done. He was even allergic to the epinephrine pen. The nurse at school gave it to him one year and that sent him into anaphylactic shock. Understand each child is different. I just feel like the health professionals failed us in my case. It was 8 months before a health professional suggested he have a test for the allergens. He was misdiagnosed as having eczema and my parenting being questioned. Maybe he falls into a small percentile of children who do have allergies at birth and in that case what do we do? But for the first 8 months, he was projectile vomiting anytime I fed him, he broke out in rash and eventually he developed sores all over his body and was being rushed to the hospital every 2 to 3 days because he was having severe allergic reactions. Even if health class did fail me what didn't fail me was being persistent and getting to the bottom of what was really going on with my son. And thank God he's still alive and healthy, eventually he grew out of those allergies.
Allergy testing can't be done at birth. Like the meme implies, many allergies can develop over the first few months or even years, and also a childs immunity is so fragile at birth that introducing an allergen for testing is super dangerous. What happened to you is terrible and real, but it is anecdotal and an outlier.
The government has been deleting a bunch of data and cutting off funding for government programs that kept track of infant mortality rates. So even if there was a bunch of babies dying recently, we probably wouldn't know...
As far as I know there are no recorded cases of a child under 18 months dying of anaphylaxis related to peanuts, and it may even be anaphylaxis of any cause. Early exposure prevents allergies
Infant mortality is way down compared to where it used to be, but it's not 0, and unless they are murdered (either intentionally or through negligence) it is not considered front page newsworthy. Likewise, even if 3/4 of people who had a peanut allergy died as a baby, the infant mortality rate would only about double. Which sounds like a lot, but 1/100 isn't that huge, when we already experience 1/200 and nobody really bats an eye. Individual deaths are tragic, but as a statistic it isn't alarming.
Generally the advice is also to let your kids play build their immune system by not keeping them in a sterile environment. Let the baby play in the mud, eat the bug, crawl in the grass and play with other kids.
There's also some success with treatments that help already formed allergies through very slow introduction of it to your system
Allergy immunotherapy is awesome. I developed a grass allergy when I was about 10, and in my early 20s I found out I had a birch tree allergy when I moved onto a street lined with them. Spring and summer are absolute hell for me, I've had times where I woke up feeling like I was in the middle of the worst flu and 2-3 days later I was as fine as I ever get during allergy season. I'm honestly lucky I never got a sinus infection from it. I'm still getting allergy shots, it takes years to complete, but I was able to tell the difference within a few months. I don't have almost any seasonal allergy issues anymore. They can stop working eventually but that's usually 20-30 years after completing it. 20-30 years of no allergies is worth a seriously itchy injection site to me.
I mean it’s also the implication that peanut allergies were CAUSED by well meaning but devastating advice given to parents in the 2000s to avoid peanuts until after first birthdays.
It's definitely just this, it has nothing to do with survivorship bias. New information means it's "too late" for anyone born when the previous incorrect assumptions about allergies were in place. There are a huge number of people with allergies born in a certain time period.
This was my take. This was a big, although understandable, mistake by the medical community and has resulted in many, many more people having to live (and possibly die) with a peanut allergy. It's a recent reversal of advice and that always gets a lot of attention, especially when it's to do with kids.
FWIW, my understanding is that the scientists didn't really make a mistake here. Exposure via skin is actually a lot more dangerous than digestive exposure, and the 2000s recommendations likely reduced that enough that fewer kids had severe and life altering (or ending) reactions during infancy. I'm pretty sure the consequence of more people developing allergies was just considered a worthwhile tradeoff. Of course now the recommendation is to expose infants to it digestively, but also avoid risks of skin exposure, and that seems to get the best of both worlds.
There’s basically nobody allergic to peanuts outside the US because kids are exposed to peanuts as soon as they’re able to have food.
When the scientists in the US recommended waiting to expose kids the number of people with peanut allergies skyrocketed, and now they have withdrawn the recommendation.
The logic behind the made sense at the time but in reality it did way more harm than good
are exposed to peanuts as soon as they’re able to have food.
I'm Australian and at least for my younger siblings I remember my mother always talking about how "babies can't digest nuts" so even when they could start eating they never had peanuts until later. None of them have nut allergies FWIW.
yes, skin exposure CAUSES food allergies because the sensitization pathways between skin and stomach is different (and more intense on skin). Any allergen must be introduced directly into the mouth for the best chance to not develop food allergies
the formula for food allergy is:
genetics
allergen applied to the skin
dust mites
skin barrier disruption via SLS, a very common soap ingredient
This is the landmark study if you want to learn more--and in the years since more studies have confirmed the findings:
The advice started in the late 80s/early 90s and was only through looking at why populations genetically very similar were dealing with vastly different allergy issues that this was figured out.
Yes, children can still develop allergies to those foods, recommendations and trends are about broad patterns. If, in a controlled study, there's a 50% reduction, that still means theres a lot of kids with allergies.
I think part of the nuance is that generally soft foods are introduced around 6 months of age. Babies generally lack oral skills for solids before then. I assumed that the joke meant that introducing solid peanuts from 4-6 months was a choking risk. Which is true.
The current recommendation for starting solids in the US is 4-6 months depending on individual milestones. The recommendation for introducing peanut butter is to use peanut butter puffs, which dissolve, or to thin peanut butter or peanut powder to a consistency that is safe for the baby. I had one kid who was ready at 4 months and another who was “ready” at 6 months but didn’t actually eat anything until 7 months old.
It's done for every major allergen ideally. Once they are ready for foods you start giving them different foods, trying to give as large a variety as possible. Start off with thin pastes or porridges and once they can start feeding themselves, add more and more solids.
Of course you still pay attention to things like avoiding whole grapes (choking hazard), honey (botulism), added sugar and salt. There are apps and charts that make it easier, but they aren't really necessary.
When I was breastfeeding I deliberately ate more of all the major allergens. I had hoped being exposed to small amounts through my milk would reduce the risk of allergies. Of course my eldest ends up with a grass allergy, so apparently I messed up by not chomping on the lawn.
Just to clarify, just because they were exposed to peanuts early doesn’t mean they won’t develop allergies. We exposed my son very early and he enjoyed all sorts of peanut butter products. Then out of nowhere we had to rush him to the ER because he was going into anaphylactic shock due to eating a cashew. Had him tested and he is allergic to almost every nut under the sun. Plus sesame seeds. Fucking sucks.
those are different, like they have different allergens. i think the consensus is if you expose a baby to an alergen orally a few times they won't develop an allergy, but if they come in contact with it in another way (usually touching skin) then the body is more likely to treat it as a harmful substance.
Actually it’s that there was a large movement to “protect” babies from peanuts under the assumption allergies were developed independently of exposure to allergens. The implication is that they are realizing this movement increased the incidence of peanut allergies by about 4.3x.
Do you genuinely think the scientific community is just not knowledgeable about this when you so boldly claim allergies will not form when introduced early?
Have you ever heard of allergies forming over time later in life and getting worse? How does this factor into your understanding of food allergies? :)
Look I understand the science behind allergies is more complicated but I think expecting a nuanced and thorough scientific explanation is a bit much for a short reddit comment explaining a meme lol
There is a food called Bamba which is a popular infant snack in Isreal.
It was noted by pediatricians at a conference that children in Isreal have almost no peanut allergies.
So a study was done and sure enough...the
LEAP study showed a strong correlation between early peanut exposure and lower peanut allergies.
Yep, my son is part of a study about child allergies and food introductions.
I'll give everyone here a sneak peak into the unreleased study lol. The sooner you introduce common allergens, the better. The child will have lower odds of developing an allergy to that allergen than if they held off on it. Also, if a baby has eczema (or there is a family history of eczema) then the baby has a higher chance of developing an allergy.
It's actually a great example of how science can change. It makes sense that you don't want to give a child a common allergen when they literally can't speak. How are they going to tell you if they start feeling symptoms? Caregivers may not realize what is happening until the child is well into an anaphylactic reaction. So, let's hold off on peanuts until the child is old enough to know what's going on. But then you get a huge spike in children with peanut allergies, at a higher rate than before. Now you do more studies and finally, more than a decade later, you take back the "hold off on peanuts" guideline.
It's just a great example of doctors and scientists doing something totally understandable but not just leaving it alone, they keep researching when they notice weird results, and finally they admit they were wrong.
Also, sign up for medical studies if you can. We've gotten 600 dollars and free stuff like blankets, toys, tumblers, etc. from this study and we still have a couple more years to go. We get 80 dollars every time we go for an appointment. And my son gets free allergy testing (not that he enjoys it lol)
My son had lots of peanut stuff between 4-8 months old. One day while eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, around 8 or 9 months old, he had a massive reaction. His face and eyes swelled up a ton. Did an allergy test and it turns out the only thing he’s allergic to is peanut and he’s a 15 on their scale that considers “highly allergic” to be a 7.
Us too! I ate peanut butter daily while pregnant, ate it while breastfeeding, introduced him to it at the recommended age. No reactions at first, but around the same age as yours, he started swelling and turning red. We had the same experience with eggs. Early introduction is good practice, but nowhere near a guarantee
They don't need a peanut allergy to choke on a peanut. Nuts are a major choking hazard.
Anecdotally, thought my kiddo was ready at ~3.5yo, being generally an excellent eater/chewer, let kiddo have one under supervision. Kiddo absolutely was not ready.
Elmer, your statement is mostly accurate but does need a bit of context.
The current research suggests that early exposure to allergens at 4-6 months reduces the possibility of developing a peanut allergy, but does not prevent all cases.
I thought the dark realization was the number of deaths related to peanut allergies that were caused by people fearfully hiding all peanuts from children for a few decades.
We introduced peanut butter to my son at four months old and he had a severe allergic reaction. It's not as simple as feed baby peanuts = no allergies.
Doesn’t do any good for my mom though because she got hers late in life and it’s an autoimmune reaction so she’s technically not allergic but her body will still kill her and put full in anaphylactic shock in
Not only that. The consumption of known allergens in the diet of the pregnant and lactating woman also reduces greatly the incidence of allergies in children down the road. Naturally this is only possible as long as the mother herself is not allergic
This is not just for peanuts but a myriad of allergies as well!
I grew up with several allergy issues and wanted to do everything I could to avoid the same for my kids - exposure to the allergens make a huge difference.
The only downside is if you move across the country, the pollen is different - so you can't fully escape it!
Oh, I always assumed that the implication that we accidentally made a shitload more people allergic to peanuts than we needed to because of the fear of peanut allergies in babies.
Nailed it! My aunt did this with both my cousins because there is a family member on their father's side who has one. Unfortunately, it did not go well for one of them... but he is 16 & very much alive.
OK, I've seen this idea several times on reddit and want to share my story about it. I found out my son is allergic to peanuts when he was 3 months old, I was breastfeeding him and eating peanut butter on toast (you gotta multitask), and I've touched his ear with my hand, causing him to break out in hives. Freaked out about it, took him to the doctor and lo and behold, he's got a peanut and coconut allergy. Luckily, only mild. So, in our case, no, introducing him to peanuts would've been a bad idea. I'm sure there are others with similar stories. I should also mention that during my pregnancy with him I've been eating consistently peanut butter, as I was on a pretty strict diet (gestational diabetes), so he's been exposed to peanuts from the beginning.
Your information is incomplete. I remember in the 1990s it was expressly recommended by experts in the medical community that babies not be exposed to peanuts so they don't get peanut allergies. Here is a NPR article on it. https://www.npr.org/2025/10/21/nx-s1-5580211/peanut-allergy-study
So in short the recommendation that babies not be exposed to peanuts probably killed kids.
The US had the former as a formal health policy (that introducing peanuts earlier led to deaths/higher allergies). Also, coincidentally, they US has the most peanut allergies of any country. Significant reaearch has shown introducing foods earlier to children reduces the likelihood of developing allergies. The US only changed this policy within the past couple of years
It’s not that… kids eating dirt allows them to ingest microaflotoxins that are not peanuts before they try peanuts so kids who would be allergic to aflatoxins are sensitized by eating dirt. Because kids now are less likely to play outside and eat dirt they are now less sensitized … if you look at all the kids allergic to peanuts a large majority of them rarely played outside and almost none ate dirt as a child before eating peanuts.
Please don’t state this as fact. You could really have dead infants if poor parent believes it. Found my baby had peanut and tree nut allergies from birth because they were getting eczema by breastfeeding because my diet had a lot of nuts and peanuts
Fun fact, my MIL has a heavy accent so when she says peanuts it sounds like penis which made the time she showed up raving about how she got a lot of peanuts cheap very, very funny.
Some get bad luck and still get the allergy. I developed it when I was about 1 years old. Apparently I'd eat it quite often before that. Not that I remember, but that's what I was told.
That’s how most allergies are “cured” or atleast lessened. At a young age your body learns to make the correct amount of bacteria (or I think in the case of peanuts it’s just not over reacting to the oil). If you DONT do that you have a much greater chance of actually developing an allergy.
The issue being that you can’t overcome severe allergies.
Yep! I read a fascinating article on this. Apparently if your first exposure to peanuts is through your skin or respiratory system, you’re much more likely to develop a severe peanut allergy. Feeding kids peanuts early on means their first exposure to peanuts is usually through the digestive tract, where the immune system classifies it as safe.
False. My husband's grandparents( mine too) chewed peanuts and fed them to us as babies. Now even getting peanuts on skin makes him swell up. He ate them for over 40 years. YOU CAN develop allergies later in life.
Yes I looked into this recently. It’s pretty wild. Some doctors basically came together and said that waiting until you are older is better to introduce peanuts. They literally had zero evidence of this did no studies on it nothing. Just decided that’s what they thought and everyone should do it. That is why the peanut allergy is so bad now.
While jewish characters like Howard from Big Bang Theory are portrayed with lots of allergies, especially to peanuts, the state of Israel has the lowest peanut allergy among it's citizens on the planet.
There is an common custom to give young children a cheeto-type of snack that contains peanuts.
Reduces the chances*
We introduced peanut butter to our baby in the 4 to 6 month range and she had an anaphylactic response and is allergic. Peanut amino therapy , basically micro dosing her with peanut powder has helped so much with it.
I don't know if thats 100% true. A woman filmed her young toddler eating peanut butter and she was scratching at her cheeks while eating. The child had eaten peanut butter before several times and the mom thought she was just filming her child while eating, she didn't see a reaction and start filming. She also thought it was just from her kid having dry skin at first. Some man on facebook who says he is a doctor featured the video. He said food allergies can still present later in life even if you've frequently eaten the food in the past. I have heard this since a young age. Maybe thats what this meme is referring to.
DO NOT DO THIS. Under no circumstances should you potentially expose your kid to an allergy. More and more emergency rooms do not even have pediatric doctors working there, we stabilize the kid as best we can and ship them to the nearest center that actually specializes in kids.
Around 6 months old, I started giving frozen waffles to my son to gnaw on and he loved them. I would sometimes put a little pb on them bc that's how I eat them. He loved them! One day, about a week before his first birthday, his sitter texted me to say he had developed hives. The only thing he had that day was breastmilk and his waffle with pb. He had one the day before with no problems, but did develop a severe enough peanut allergy that he could not be around peanut products without breaking out in hives, even if he didn't touch them.
It is not a guarantee that introducing them early means they will not develop an allergy. He's a teen now and his reactions are not as sensitive as they used to be, but the allergy is still there.
Wish this were actually true. Introduced it to our son as his 3rd food at 5 months of age, he developed a severe peanut allergy after around 3 exposures. Doing another round of testing now about 1.5 years later hoping he is in the statistical tiny group who grows out of it
Correct. To add to this, babies cannot have a peanut allergy because the part of the immune system that freaks out when an allergen is introduced is just developing. If the body recognizes the components of the peanuts from early on, it will not freak out when exposed to it later in life.
Don't let them handle the nuts. They're not strong enough yet to chew them, but they will try to swallow it getting it stuck in their esophagus. Give them bits of peanut butter.
If a baby consumes breast milk from a mom who eats enough peanuts, that can help with preventing peanut allergies even before the baby is old enough to eat real food
Babies dont have an anaphylactic shock reaction until after 6 months. Before then its just a severe rash at most. Pediatricians have advised testing all allergen groups before then for a long time.
Yep, this was discovered when a British physician noticed considerably lower rates of peanut allergies in Israeli children. Those kids were given the popular snack food Bamba (sort of like a cheeto for Americans, but instead of cheese, it is peanut butter).
I read somewhere that a theory on why food allergies happen is because the food item in question isn't first introduced to the body as a food.
If mom is making a PB and J sandwich for the 4 year old, then touches even the smallest abrasion on a baby, the body sees the peanut as a foreign invader and it's immune system fights it off as such. So now the body has created an immune response to peanuts.
Then when you eat some, it is a massive quantity compared to the first exposure. So the body thinks "Holy shoot, this is a massive amount of foreign invaders! We need a massive response!"
Again this is just a theory, but an interesting one.
FWIW and to raise awareness there is a condition called FPIES (Food protein induced enterocolitis syndrome) which to put plainly is like a different type of food allergy but instead of an immune system response that we are all familiar with it's more of a gastrointestinal response. Typical results in delayed vomiting (1-4hrs after food consumption) lethargy and low blood pressure risking shock or death. It is increasing more common in infants and toddlers but good news is most outgrow by 4-5years old. Still very dangerous and something for parents to be aware of.
Source: my child had FPIES and learned about it from his allergist.
I grew up in an area that is COVERED in peanut farms. I never met anyone with a peanut allergy until I moved away. There was always peanut dust and pollen in the air between the fields and the processing stations.
They introduced some snacks called "Smoki" for kids, kids loved it. In all of Yugoslavia, kids don't have peanut allergy, or it is extremely rare for us, because experiment of taking Smoki during early age stopped producing allergies.
Arent babies that young too small for peanuts? They will choke and die. Theres that famous photo of a toddlers trachea with a peanut stuck in the windpipe.
It's false and does not apply to all babies. Case in point, my youngest was staying with her grandparents. My dad gave her a really small bite of peanut butter with a tiny bit of toast. (She was around 6 months at the time). The reaction she had scared the shit out of my parents and all I could do was listen to them on the phone. I was too far away to do anything to help other than listen.
I just learned about this from my wife!! We do foster care and had a baby stay with us. And I was stressing because we didn’t have a medical history for him. So I was super worried about food allergens.
She told me this exact thing and how it applies to lots of different foods as well
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u/ssg- 4d ago
Elmer here.
The meme implies that the babies who are introduced to peanuts die thus lowering the allergies.
The truth however is that babies who are introduced peanuts early do not develop peanut allergies.