If you are raising a child with food allergies, you know the stress of keeping them safe from reactions can be overwhelming. Meal planning, teaching them how to read labels and use their epinephrine auto-injectors, dealing with the administration at their school or daycare and many other worries can pile up over time affecting your mental health.
To help families cope, Massachusetts General Hospital recently published Managing Anxiety: A Handout for Families of Children with Food Allergies.
The guide begins with a series of tips including important proactive steps like establishing a Food Allergy Emergency Action Plan. The Action Plan, devised in concert with your child’s allergist, details the steps that should be taken should your child show signs of an allergic reaction, including how to recognize the symptoms, which medications to administer, and when to call emergency services.
Having a plan in place takes all the guesswork out of responding to a reaction for you, family members, caretakers, and school staff. Knowing that you have a script to work from in an emergency can go a long way toward managing your anxiety.
The guide then provides specific advice on managing your child’s food allergies by age groups: Babies and Toddlers, Preschool, Grade School, and Teens.
It’s a quick read and well worth your time. You can find the guide by clicking here.
