Mireille Schwartz - When Your Child Has Food Allergies: A Parents Guide to Managing It All--From the Everyday to the Extreme

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Praise for When Your Child Has Food Allergies

Mireille Schwartz openly shares her firsthand experience with and expertise on family food allergies by inviting us to learn and be proactive about food allergies in our communities. As a public health educator and researcher, I appreciate her practical, accessible delivery of information as a key component of creating safe, healthy, and inclusive spaces.

Evan vanDommelen-Gonzalez, DrPH, MPH

Mireille Schwartz is a favorite guest on my talk show on KGO810 in San Francisco. My listeners love her and her sensible approach to the challenges of dealing with food allergies. She knows firsthand how difficult this can be since she, her parents, daughter, and brother all have food allergies. Mireille has made it her mission to help others. Let her experience guide you and your family in finding the answers to the frustrating food allergy issues you face.

Ronn Owens, Talk Radio Host;
inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, 2015

Mireille Schwartz has been educating all of us to the powers of food. We must listen to what this prolific author has to say in her new book When Your Child Has Food Allergies. The hidden allergies that children face can truly make a difference in how they grow up and the deleterious effects that they may carry forward as adults. Im so excited for this new book, and for all of us to finally become aware of the symptoms and the hidden dangers of allergic reactions.

Frankie Boyer; Radio Talk Show Host,
The Frankie Boyer Show

Mireille Schwartz provides exemplary food allergy information and insights in an innovative, practical, friendly, and calm style. Decades of her own experience combined with her empathy for others makes for an interesting blend of safe and sane food allergy tips. These are strategies to live by!

Jonathan Lawhead, Executive Producer, 2013
Discovery Channel documentary
An Emerging Epidemic: Food Allergies in America

When Your
Child Has
Food
Allergies

A PARENTS GUIDE TO MANAGING IT ALLFROM THE EVERYDAY TO THE EXTREME

MIREILLE SCHWARTZ

For
Charlotte Jude,
Dad, Grandmre, and Grandpre

THIS IS A BOOK written by a parent, for parents. So it is full of practical, honest, first hand information about how to cope, and thrive, with a child who has a chronic food allergy. When treating many chronic conditions in children, parents dispense medication but otherwise play a relatively passive role. Thats not the case with food allergies. You, as well as all your children and your innermost circle, are responsible for managing the allergy on a daily basisand will most likely be the first people to respond to an adverse reaction. In this way, you are your childs best resource, and as a food allergy parent, you are most definitely part superherowho knew?

Once you incorporate the lifestyle changes that are absolutely essential to keeping your child safe, you will be able to keenly spot hidden allergens from a mile away, you will read food labels at lightning speed without missing anything, andby advocating within your community for your childs safetyyou will have stretched and grown in ways you might never have thought possible.

After initially receiving a food allergy diagnosis, things can get really interesting and challenging in your life. A food-allergic child still needs to live richly and experience a wide tapestry of things, like trips to the neighborhood playground, vacations to foreign lands, celebrations of milestones, plus the regular day-to-day moments that are spontaneous and special. But it can be hard to see how on earth this might fit into a familys food-allergic life, which needs to be maintained rigidly, cautiously, with everyone remaining completely vigilant. How can you avoid a life of high-alert stress and instead relax enough to enjoy each moment with your family? And how can you teach your food-allergic child to overcome his or her fears to live fully?

These are all riddles I have worked hard to solve throughout my life. I was born with a potentially life-threatening allergy to fish all fishand I had to find ways to adapt in an era before there was any awareness or support, when there was no practical education readily available in all doctors waiting rooms and on so many websites and blogs. And Ill tell you, it was harrowing. There was nothing to guide me except logic. Once I learned that it was possible to train myself to make the most logical deductions, I realized that I could relax and trust my response when a snap decision needed to be made. I found, over and over again, that I was able to unlock the most sensible solution to any food allergy dilemma. And many of these strategies naturally transferred to my role as the parent of a severely nut-allergic daughter.

This book is filled with the logical solutions and ever-ready mentalities that I developed and now want to share. And I also want to reach out, from one parent to another, to bolster your strength as you navigate the myriad challenges that come from your childs allergy. Thats why I want to begin this book by sharing the personal story of how the Golden Gate Bridge over the San Francisco Bay became a symbol of living with food allergies.

When my daughter Charlotte was in the third grade, she was safely ensconced at a safe and nut-free school with happy social dynamics. She had been there since kindergarten and had even begun carrying her own EpiPen. We were feeling like we could take a breath and finally relax into a great routine. Then the unthinkable occurred. An impersonal, official letter arrived in the mailwithout a word from anyone at the schoolthat briefly stated that at the end of the school year, the nut-free policy would be lifted and everyone could eat peanuts and tree nuts anywhere and everywhere, throughout the classrooms. This small school was in an old building without a cafeteria and equipped with an antiquated ventilation systemmy severely allergic daughter would surely be exposed. The letter arrived well after the admissions timeline had ended for other schools. Its message was clear: Your medical condition is inconvenient, youre a nuisance, you impact what can and cant be put into kids lunchboxes, so get out.

We were completely devastated. Indignant friends and supporters urged us to fight the school policy change with a lawyer, and one even stepped forward and offered to take our case for free. But we didnt have the heart. Why would we want our child to be in a place where she wasnt wanted? What kind of environment would this be for her, each day, if an administration forced by a legal system to accommodate grew hostile? No one wants to be someplace daily where he or she isnt welcome. Terrified, we began hustling to find another elementary school on extremely short notice. All the while, we politely grinned at the band of policy-making teachers and board parents wed previously considered friends and supporters.