By Carina HoskissonLast week a friend of mine posted this question as a Facebook status: "What is gl...

1. Why Do Your Kid's Allergies Mean My Kid Can't Have a
Birthday? | Today's Mama
By Carina Hoskisson
Last week a friend of mine posted this question as a Facebook status: "What is gluten, nut, and egg-
free AND also store-bought that I can serve at a kindergarten class party?"
I don't know, air?
All over the country parents are being asked to accommodate the specialized needs of other people's
children thanks to the skyrocketing number of food allergies and food intolerances. (They both have
similar symptoms, but intolerances are generally considered less serious and not life-threatening.)
We can't bring in homemade cookies or snacks; we're asked to buy commercially prepared goods.
Even if you agree to bring in commercially prepared snacks, you're asked to make sure they're
"gluten, nut, and egg-free" or some other combination of scary food exorcism.
To a certain extent, I get it. When I was in high school, a girl in my town died from eating a few bites
of a Twix bar that happened to contain traces of peanuts. Many allergies can be deadly, even in tiny
increments. If a child in the same homeroom as my son could go into anaphylactic shock and die due
to allergies, I think we have a communal responsibility to keep him or her safe. I would never
endanger the life of a child over a peanut butter cookie; that would be ridiculous.
However, I am rapidly reaching the end of my rope as I try to accommodate what feels like every
child in the universe. Schools ask parents to bring items, to provide snacks and to help with class
parties and celebrate birthdays. My children's school requires that we only provide store-bought
treats because some children have allergies or dietary restrictions. One mom told me there were so
many allergies in her children's classes last year that all she could bring was gummy bears and juice
boxes.
Let me get this straight: I'm supposed to feed my kids processed, preservative-laden food because
your kid has a wheat allergy? No. I don't want to. I want my kid to have the made-from-scratch
cupcakes, the ones made with fresh butter, sugar and yes, real flour with real gluten in it, and not a
commercially prepared cupcake that has an ingredient list a mile long. How could that possibly be
better? Not to mention that commercially prepared items are expensive.
I understand the problem with allergies because I have allergies; I'm allergic to egg whites. The
difference is I don't demand egg-free items when I go to parties or to work events. I don't always get
to eat what people are serving, but I certainly don't demand that my friend make me a separate cake
for me on her birthday.
It makes sense to ban certain items when children are too young to ask and avoid foods that they
might have sensitivities toward. But once we cross a threshold, personal responsibility and parental
education need to come into play. I agree that a teacher should let all parents know about any life-
threatening allergies in a classroom. However, my kid shouldn't have to forgo his birthday cake
because yours can't eat it.

2. There are parents of kids with allergies who leave approved treats with teachers, so other parents
don't have to worry about remembering and accommodating a different need. I've even made special
dispensations for kids -- like special allergy-free treats for a kid on my son's soccer team. I would
surely consider bringing an extra allergy-free item to the class for a child, but depriving all the other
children for the sake of the one hardly seems fair (excluding life-threatening circumstances). Even if
we agree to only bring commercially prepared treats, there's no guarantee that those won't harm a
child. The story of the girl who ate the Twix is proof of that.
Some schools have even gone the route of banning all classroom birthdays and celebrations, which is
ridiculous. The fear of one shouldn't outweigh the rest. We don't always get to eat things we want to
eat. Sometimes I have to say no to your tasty, egg-laden brownies. Sometimes my kid doesn't eat
something because it has nuts, and he simply doesn't like them. Sometimes your kid with allergies
can't eat my kid's birthday cake.
Let's stop the allergy insanity, and let the rest of them eat cake -- the lovely, homemade, buttery,
gluten-stuffed cake.
Also on HuffPost:
If there's one thing that researchers have confirmed in recent years, it's that breastfeeding has
benefits. And several 2013 studies uncovered even more evidence supporting that fact: One found
that breastfeeding longer may help boost babies' intelligence, perhaps because breast milk contains
DHA, which has been linked to cognitive development. Another suggested that breastfeeding may be
protective against ADHD -- although it did not establish cause and effect (so it might be that other
aspects of children's upbringing, for example, or genetics played a role).
A major American Academy of Pediatrics report issued this year concluded that the majority of
medications are safe for nursing mothers, despite the fact that many women are counseled to
discontinue their use. Some medications do transfer to breast milk, but the amounts tend to be
small, while others do not transfer at all. The difficulty, however, is knowing which drugs are safe
and which are not. "There are traditional medications, like aspirin, that have been around for years
and that we have a lot of information about, we're secure in our knowledge," one doctor told
HuffPost. "But there are new drugs coming out all the time, including new antidepressants and
antipsychotics, and we know less about them."
Buying and sharing breast milk online has become increasingly popular, but it is not a particularly
safe practice, according to data released in 2013. Researchers purchased samples from one of the
most popular milk sharing websites in the U.S. and compared them to those from a milk bank (milk
banks, which are regulated by the Human Milk Banking Association of North America, follow strict
guidelines and pasteurize their milk). The online samples had higher levels of contamination, with 64
percent testing positive for staphylococcous, and three of the samples testing positive for
salmonella. Though many parents are, understandably, eager to provide their babies breast milk and
may not be able to for various reasons, there is no getting around the potential risks: "There is
hardly anything that, as a buyer, you could use to determine if a given sample is safe for your baby,"
the study's researcher told HuffPost.
A comprehensive review conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) found that the current U.S.
vaccination schedule is safe, and that there is no evidence that immunizing children against polio,
whooping cough, measles and other diseases leads to health issues, such as autism or asthma. While
the IOM said it hopes the findings will reassure parents and health care providers that current
guidelines are safe, it also called for continued monitoring, Reuters reported.

3. Since the advent of the "back to sleep" campaign (aimed at reducing the risk of Sudden Infant Death
Syndrome), the number of babies with "positional plagiocephaly" -- medicine-speak for flat spots on
their heads -- has soared. A Canada-based study found that more than 46 percent of 2- to 3-mont-
-olds have some form of the condition (most mild). Because the researchers didn't have past figures
for comparison's sake, it's entirely possible that this has long been the case, and parents and doctors
are just more aware of it now; or it could be because more babies are sleeping on their backs.
Whatever the reason, the good news is that flat spots tend to be totally harmless.
It's not just how much sleep kids get, but how regular it is that is important, according to a study out
of the U.K. Children with consistent bedtimes scored better on reading, math and tests of spatial
skills. And the effects appeared to be cumulative: Children who had inconsistent bedtimes when they
were 3 (the researchers asked parents about their kids' bedtimes at ages 3, 5 and 7) scored lower at
age 7. And kids who had inconsistent bedtimes at more than one of those ages showed more
pronounced effects on their tests. It is not clear yet whether not having a set bedtime is simply a
reflection of children living in "chaotic settings" where they were more likely to skip breakfast or
have a TV in their room, the researchers wrote or whether the effect was more direct, but sleep
experts say the message is clear: "I would tell you that in my estimation, the majority of parents have
no idea how important sleep consistency is," one told HuffPost. "It's not because they don't care.
They haven't been told."
One of the first studies to take a close look at the amount of sodium in packaged foods made for
toddlers found that 70 percent of them exceeded 210 mg of sodium per serving -- the threshold
researchers used to classify a food as high sodium. And some of the toddler meals had roughly half
of the maximum daily recommendation. Fortunately, baby foods fared better: Almost all of the
commercial foods for babies up to one year were relatively low in sodium, the researchers found.
For the first time in decades, childhood obesity rates dropped -- at least among low-income
preschoolers between the ages of 2 and 4. These lower rates are, of course, good news but health
experts say the overall numbers are still too high: One in 8 preschoolers in the U.S. is considered
obese.
A comprehensive New York Times analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data
released in 2013 uncovered a significant jump in the number of children who were diagnosed with
ADHD in the past decade. Up to 11 percent of school-age children have been told they have disorder,
according to the Times, for reasons that are not yet understood. It could be, for example, that there
is simply more awareness of ADHD or that children are being over-diagnosed. Or, perhaps, there are
factors causing ADHD to be more prevalent than before.
The prevalence of parent-reported cases of autism is up from 1 in 86 in 2007 to 1 in 50 between
2011 and 2012,
Research now shows that certain seemingly harmless things can prove risky for children. One study
found that televisions injure roughly one child in the U.S. every 30 minutes -- largely by falling on
them. Another showed parents should be vigilant when their children are in high chairs (around
9,400 young kids in the U.S. are injured falling off high chairs each year, it concluded). Magnets also
pose a risk: The number of yearly swallowing incidents jumped from roughly one child in every
200,000 in 2002 to six per 200,00 in 2010, one study showed). And amusement rides (at parks, fairs,
restaurants and malls) injure more than 4,400 children yearly).
A startling study found that when school-age children are bullied by their peers, they're twice as
likely to experience so-called "psychosomatic symptoms," including headaches, stomachaches,

4. dizziness, bed wetting and sleep problems. Sometimes, parents and teachers ignore children's
physical symptoms or assume they're faking a stomachache, for example, to get out of an activity.
But the study emphasizes that adults should take such symptoms seriously, as they might be a sign
that something else is going on.
Words matter, and so does the way they are delivered. A study concluded that harsh verbal
discipline increases childrens' risk for depression and aggressive behavior (it focused on 13 and 14-
year-olds) -- in much the same way that physical punishment often does. "The negative effects of
verbal discipline within the two-year period of [the] study were comparable to the effects shown over
the same period of time in other studies that focused on physical discipline," one of the researchers
said in a statement.
Obesity rates appear to be "cresting" among adolescents and teens, a separate study found. It also
concluded that middle and high school students are engaging in healthier behaviors, like eating
more fruits and vegetables and fewer sweets; skipping breakfast less often and exercising more.
(The study did not establish a causal relationship between these healthier behaviors and the
apparent leveling off in childhood obesity rates.) The amount of time spent watching TV also
decreased, however, the amount of time teens spent playing video games or chatting online
remained largely the same.
The study was highly preliminary and conducted with mice, but it nonetheless generated a lot of
attention for its finding that regular marijuana use during adolescence might damage brain function,
putting teens at risk for psychiatric disorders down the road. The study is not the final word (indeed,
a paper published in 2012 found teen marijuana use does not appear to affect brain tissue health).
But as the lead researcher explained, "Over the past 20 years, there has been a major controversy
about the long-term effects of marijuana, with some evidence that use in adolescence could be
damaging."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todays-mama/why-do-your-kids-allergies-mean-my-kid-cant-have-a-bir
thday_b_4767686.html