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Thursday, October 05, 2006

Allergies: A Pet Lover’s Worst Fear

I thought I would take a moment and write about something a little more serious; my worst fear when I realized I couldn’t breastfeed. Like I’ve written before, I had always assumed that I would breastfeed. My husband and I were both breastfed, and my parents are a doctor and a nurse, plus my extended family members are all in the medical profession. I was well aware of how important breastfeeding, if it works out and both mom and baby are comfortable with it, can be. Thus, I was devastated when I couldn’t breastfeed. And because I did know how important breastfeeding is (again as long as it works out), it was like I had little voices in my head saying “your child won’t be as healthy”, “he’ll be overweight”, “he won’t be as smart” and the BIG one “he’ll have allergies”. My own science background is sufficient to dismiss the first three concerns, as I am aware of where those studies depart from reality. (That will be a different post because it requires a long explanation.) The last concern continued to freak me out. Did formula feeding leave my son “at increased risk for allergies,” and if so does that mean allergies to pets? No one could tell me that.

I am a huge animal lover. I have had pets my entire life. While I did not yet have an ant farm, when my older son (OS) was born, I had 2 cats and a dog. I was also in the middle of applying to VETERINARY SCHOOL. What did that mean in terms of my child’s health? Would he be able to be an animal lover like me? Would I have to find new homes for my pets? As a future veterinarian, I know what that means. Our animal shelters are already overcrowded. I am very attached to all of my pets and I could not picture parting with them. I seriously think I would have had to take out a home equity loan and fix up my basement for them or something if my kids were ever allergic to them. Everyone said once the baby comes along, the pets come in second place. You know what? I have two kids and at the end of the day (or when I have the rare quiet time during the day) one of my very favorite things to do is to snuggle up with my pets. They don’t whine or cry. They’re also always happy to see me. Plus, they’re warm and cuddly.

In addition to threatening my own pets, what would my child’s potential animal allergies mean for my career? I knew that I would come home with all sorts of different fur and animal dander on me from examining patients. Fur is like sand - it’s gets everywhere very quickly and it is hard to get it all up when you clean it. Sure I could change my clothes before I came home, which wouldn’t be a bad idea anyway since I have healthy pets and I wouldn’t want to bring any illnesses home, but could I really get all that the fur off of me even with a change of clothes?

This fear really upset me. Everyone I knew breastfed and so it wasn’t like I could ask anyone for advice. As a formula feeder it’s hard because I felt that asking a question like that would open up Pandora’s box by forcing me to repeatedly justify why I was bottle-feeding. I knew I would feel very ALONE and again like I was a terrible mother because I KNEW all of the benefits of breastfeeding. Plus, a lot of non-pet people don’t understand pet lovers, and I was worried that they would think I was a bad mother for worrying about my pets instead of about my son.

So what happened? Despite reassurances from family members in the medical community and my fabulous cousin who has a bunch of pets, bottle-fed kids, and a house where no one has allergies, I just had to wait it out. OS’s immune system was being helped along by being exposed to our pets and all their fur and dander. In the meantime I did get accepted to veterinary school (I postponed my acceptance for other reasons) and when OS was a year and showed absolutely no signs of any allergies, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

A. Elliot’s Lesson Learned: A risk is just that: a risk. It may not happen. If it were a guarantee it would be called that.

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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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