FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education), a food allergy advocacy organization and a private funder of food allergy research, launched a new resource geared at raising awareness of the benefits of introducing a variety of new foods to babies and educating people on how they might be able to help reduce the risk of developing food allergies.
 
Dr. Ruchi Gupta will serve as lead spokesperson for Baby's First. Dr. Gupta is a Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at Northwestern University, Clinical Attending at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, and a mother to two children, one of whom has severe food allergies. Gupta also serves as FARE's Medical Advisor for Policy, Education and Public Health.
 
Published in 2015 and funded in part by FARE, the Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) study transformed the guidance that pediatricians and allergists/immunologists give to parents about when to introduce peanut foods to children. The research led the American Academy of Pediatrics to endorse early introduction of peanut foods for infants at risk for peanut allergy. In 2017, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, published new guidelines for introducing peanut foods to infants. These recommendations vary depending on a baby's risk of developing peanut allergy, which can be evaluated by the baby's primary care physician or by an allergist/immunologist. Baby's First brings together the latest expert advice to help guide how parents and families can put these recommendations into practice.
 
www.BabysFirst.org
www.foodallergy.org