Australian Infant Food Allergy Emergency Presentations Following Updated Early Food Introduction Guidelines

The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy food allergy prevention guidelines were updated in 2016 to recommend home introduction of allergenic foods actively in the first year of life, including to infants at high risk of allergy. An important consideration for parents and providers is whether this practice increases food allergy reactions or anaphylaxis.

We aimed to determine whether the 2016 update of food allergy prevention guidelines was associated with an increase in food allergy or anaphylaxis emergency department (ED) presentations.

We obtained hospital electronic medical records for infants aged 4 to 12 months who attended the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne ED in 2015 or in 2018 with a presenting problem or an encounter diagnosis of food allergy or anaphylaxis.

Emergency department presentations owing to food allergy increased from 1.0% (95% CI, 0.85-1.23) in 2015 to 1.4% (95% CI, 1.22-1.67) in 2018 (P = .006). There was no increase in the number of anaphylaxis presentations (28 in 2015 and 22 in 2018) or peanut anaphylaxis presentations (three in 2015 and three in 2018). Overall, the proportion of food allergy presentations attributed to IgE-mediated food allergy was similar (82.1% in 2015 and 84.1% in 2018), whereas peanut allergy presentations increased slightly, although not statically significantly, from 14.6% to 21.2% (P = .09). Food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome ED presentations were five in 2015 (4.3%) and 12 in 2018(7.6%), although not statistically significant (P = .25).

Changes to food allergy prevention guidelines recommending the earlier introduction of allergenic food may have led to a small increase in ED presentations for food allergy but not anaphylaxis.