Exposing baby to nuts with allergic parent
Hi all,
My husband is allergic to nuts, with a severe reaction to peanuts (severity of reaction to other nuts is unclear and varies), and he carries an EpiPen. It’s sensitive enough that he can get mouth/tongue tingles from smelling peanuts, so we have absolutely no nuts in the house.
However, we’ve just had a baby, and the advice is to expose her to allergens (especially nuts) regularly to help her body get used to them. So far, I’ve been using nut butters (so far so good) but this just means I’m ending up with multiple nut butter jars, and multiple risks of cross contamination, which isn’t sustainable.
My new plan has been to buy mixed nut/peanut powder so I can do one single exposure on a day that my husband is out the house and cover all the nuts we need to once per week. This is where I need your help.
Please can you sense check the plan (approved by husband too, but we’re both navigating this for the first time):
- keep nut powders in a sealed/airtight bag AND box away from other food
- take these outside to open them and put a scoop or two into something like yoghurt or fruit purée to give to baby (also mixed up outside)
- do one exposure per week when husband is at work, early in the morning and then bath baby immediately afterwards (she’ll be wearing a bib that can then be cleaned with hot water and soap)
- hand wash any utensils in the sink with hot, soapy water, and then washed a second time in the dishwasher
- wipe down any surfaces with dish soap and disposable wipes, and wash my hands with hand soap and hot water
- do all nappy changes for 24hrs after, to husband isn’t exposed that way
Does that sound like a sensible plan? Are there any additional steps/better methods to keep everyone safe? Any help would be hugely appreciated!