If you suspect your child has allergies, or if allergies run in
the family, there are many things a parent can do to both lessen
their child's chance of becoming allergic and how severely these
allergies bother the child: 1. An allergy-free womb environment.
Especially if you have a family history of allergies you can
reduce your child's risks of later becoming allergic by reducing
your exposure to allergens while you're pregnant. This is
especially true of food allergies. Avoid or eat sparingly the
most common food allergens: nuts, eggs, cows milk, eggs, and
shell fish. (Sometimes also wheat and soy.) 2. Breastfeed your
baby. The intestines are the body's nutritional gate keeper,
letting into the blood the right proteins and keeping out the
proteins that may harm the body - called allergenic proteins, or
allergens. In the early months your baby's intestines are more
porous; the "gate" in the intestinal lining is open, allowing
foreign proteins to get through. Around six months the
intestines mature and the g