Frustrated

For all the benefits of breastfeeding that have been proven to exist, there are exceptions to every rule. I just read an article at the Washington Post's online site about how the rise in allergies can be partially attributed to declining breastfeeding rates. I know that the data shows breastfed babies develop few allergies and diseases like asthma, but it hasn't been working out that way for me...

My five year old was just diagnosed with a peanut allergy. I now have to keep benedryl and an epi pen junior in my purse all of the time. No one in our families has an allergy to peanuts. I nursed my son for 34 months, and he never had a bottle in his life. When I was pregnant with him, though, I craved peanut butter like you wouldn't believe. I ate it almost every day, and I had never really enjoyed it before then. After he showed some signs of an allergy when he two, I read that pregnant women should avoid peanuts if there was a family history of the allergy. I haven't had any since getting pregnant with my youngest because she's still nursing. The thing is that we had no history before. I'm guessing that I shouldn't have had any peanuts at all with any of my pregnancies.

My 21 month old may be developing asthma. We all had the flu last month, and every single one of us went through a day of wheezing. My breathing was so loud and labored that it woke me up in the middle of the night. The pediatrician ordered a nebulizer and asthma meds for my baby, which freaked me out. We all had the symptoms, and they all went away after a day. Grace's did too, so we assumed that she wasn't any worse off than the rest of us. Well, this past weekend, she and Alexander came down with colds (we've all caught it since). Grace began wheezing again. At one point, she was breathing so hard that she would start to say something and then quit. We pulled out the nebulizer and gave her breathing treatments. Once she was asleep, her breathing became more normal, but I lay awake beside her until 4am. I didn't want her to start struggling again without me being aware of it.

None of us has ever been around smokers, my kids have never been in daycare, none have ever had formula. All of those things are listed as risk factors for children to develop asthma. We do have family members (my brother and my mother-in-law) with the disease. From my research, though, family history doesn't seem to have as much to do with it as environment.

It just goes to show that you can't always control the outcomes; all you can do is make your best effort.