My husband has severe food allergies, I'm pregnant, should I be concern?

[CaliGirl626]

Hello,

My husband is allergic to sereval foods: most nuts (he could only ingest Peanuts, Almonds, and Macademia), soy products and all fresh fruits except citrus.  If the food mentioned above even touch his tongue, his throat will close up, he would be throwing up, running high fever and have diahhrea.  The symptoms last about two days.    

I am 18 weeks pregnant, the doctor wants me to consume protein and calcium.  Since I'm lactose intolerant, I try to drink about 2 glasses of soymilk a day.  I also have some peanut butter with toast for a snack or have a handful of almonds.  

My concern is, even though my husband is not allergic peanuts and almonds, I don't know if there is a possibility that the baby will be or not.  Should I cut all those food out of my diet?  Or would it be okay to keep consuming them since the baby will be protected under my immunity?  

I don't think I have many choices left in food if I need to cut those items, I also have Gestational Diabetes, so I can't drink Orange Juice to get the calcium that way.

Any comments/ Advice is much appreciated!

[Dr. Kokil Mathur]

Hi
Thanks for writing to the forum!

If you are not allergic to something, then you can eat that during your pregnancy. Your husband’s allergies will start affecting your baby once he is born and starts eating outside food. Breast feeing will help develop immunity. Your baby receives everything from you in a digested form. Hence what you can comfortably eat without problems will not harm your baby.
If you have gestational diabetes, you should avoid carbohydrate rich food. You should also not take a very high calorie diet at any point of time. The trick is to space out your meals. Take frequent small meals rather than bulky ones.

Please go through this link for non dairy food rich in calcium: http://pediatrics.about.com/od/calcium/a/06_calcium_food.htm


Hope this helps. Please let me know if there is any thing else and do keep me posted. Take care!

[JAY_22]

I been drinking rice milk for the past year a grown three inches, and on my last blood test the doc said I have high calcium levels, so Rice milk is always a option to get your calcium.