A story published in The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that Australasia’s leading allergy experts, the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy (ASCIA), suggest it is time to re-think advice regarding the introduction of certain foods to infants and children, including those at high risk of developing food allergies.

According to the article (click here to view the article), ASCIA intend to recommend to the National Health and Medical Research Council a change from the current government advice that infants should be exclusively breast-fed for the first six months. They believe this practice could raise the allergy risk, and four months is a better age for babies to begin building up immune tolerance to some basic foods.

The new recommendations come as food allergies had risen over the past two decades, at the same time as parents had been warned to be cautious about introducing specific foods. As this strategy had not worked to prevent allergy, Andrew Kemp, Professor of Paediatric Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Children's Hospital at Westmead suggests it might be time to "reverse the thinking" to see whether early exposure to such foods could help children develop a tolerance to them and reduce allergy rates.

The report clearly points out that children who had already developed severe allergies should still avoid the implicated foods.