Parental concerns of allergy or hypersensitivity and the infant's diet.
Bettina Holmberg Fagerlund, Sølvi Helseth, Lene Frost Andersen and 2 others
PMID 30534403WHAT IT FOUND
Parents who avoided foods for their 10-month-old because of allergy fears did not feed them differently from other parents.
They were more likely to want more infant feeding information.
Key findings
01Parents who reported avoiding foods because they feared allergy or hypersensitivity did not have infants with different food intake from parents who did not report avoidance.
0234% of parents reported avoiding appropriate foods because of allergy or hypersensitivity fears, and 68.9% of these parents wanted more information about infant and toddler food, compared with 46.0% of non-avoiding parents.
034.1% of parents reported child feeding or food problems related to allergy or hypersensitivity; the 18 children with these problems consumed significantly less cheese than the 422 children without.
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How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that allergy fears caused any change in infant diet. The sample was highly educated and almost exclusively of non-immigrant background, so results may not apply to more diverse populations. The paper does not report how many parents were initially invited, and only 440 of 686 enrolled children had completed questionnaires. Food allergy or hypersensitivity problems were parent-reported, not clinically diagnosed. Diet was reported retrospectively by parents on a questionnaire, so exact intake may be uncertain.
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that allergy fears cause infants to eat differently. The study found no difference in infant food intake between parents who reported avoidance and those who did not, and it cannot show causation because it was cross-sectional.