Dad has cat allergy - newborn precautions?

[mangopaco]

Hey all,

I have a pretty severe cat allergy. It usually starts off slow, a little sneeze here and there but by hour two near a cat I will start wheezing and, if still in close proximity, it will turn into an asthma attack.

My wife is not allergic to cats and had one when she was little.

We have a couple of friends with a tiny apartment and two cats that want to come visit. Usually their clothes are full of cat hair (and I imagine cat dander, etc). Will if be OK for them to hold by 26 day old son?

Can we ever visit them? When we visit I usually take a Claritin, bring my inhaler, sit by an open window, and leave withing an hour or two. When can Santiago visit them if ever?

Any thoughts would be most welcome!

[elanorh]

My husband also is very allergic to cats. Our dds aren't (they had multiple food allergies, dd2 has outgrown all of them and dd1 is still allergic to egg).

You've passed a tendency towards allergies on to your son; but he may not develop them. There's a lot of research which shows that being around animals can decrease allergies to dogs/cats as kids get older.

Personally, I think I'd be more concerned about the cat dander that your son would potentially be carrying back to the house(and impacting *you*); if you notice signs of allergy on his part while he's around their cats, then obviously avoid cats. But otherwise, my advice would be to follow your usual protocol while at the friends' house (or when they visit you).

What the girls do, when we visit friends with cats, is basically change clothes the minute they walk through the door - we head straight to the bathroom and they take a bath or shower and the cat-dander-y clothes go straight into the washer. You could do something similar with your baby; bring a change of clothes, leave the diaper bag in the car - when you leave, wipe baby down, change into different clothes, tuck the dirty clothes in a bag so you aren't going to be bothered (as much?) by the dander on the way home .....

I'll be curious to hear what others' advice is - this is what I'd do, though. Have you discussed your concerns with your pediatrician?

[emilysmama]

I am really allergic to cats, like you. My allergist said that because I am allergic, there is a 25% chance that dd will be allergic, but it might not necessarily be cats. Then allergist said that because my husband is allergic to something else the chance is 50%, but again, it might be an allergy to something else, not necessarily cats. (I also remember not noticing an allergy to cats until the summer between 7th and 8th grade. Not sure if it was because I suddenly had a lot of exposure then, or if the allergy didn't develop until then.)

I can completely empathize with you about wanting to keep child away from the slightest sign of cat dander. It seems logical because it causes ME so much suffering. And yes, I've heard about those studies about how exposure to cats at a young age might help prevent allergies. Haven't had a chance to look them up.

When dd was 3 months old, I took my dd to a party at a house with two cats that roamed all over the place. In spite of my fears, nothing bad happened. (Of course, the cat didn't go near the baby, and my baby didn't handle the cat.) Haven't tried it since then, because I avoid cats for my own sake and dd has been afraid of cats these past few years.

So as hard as it may be, I think it is okay to take your child to the cat house and keep a close eye for symptoms.

What finally helped me the most was allergy shots. They didn't help at first, but I kept bugging my allergist to tweak with the formula, and now it's fantastic.

[emilysmama]

I think that the pp's concern about your baby transmitting dander to you and triggering your own allergies is a valid one. My allergist once mentioned a study done in Europe (I think a Scandinavian country?) where they found that children who didn't have cats (at least I think they were cats), had cat dander in their houses. He said that they eventually traced the dander starting from the homes of the children who owned cats, and those children brought the dander to school, and the children who didn't have cats got the dander at school and brought it to their catless homes.

So I think the precautions the pp suggested are very good ones.

I think I'd make everyone take their shoes off outside of both houses. For example, if you go visit the cat, then when you come home, don't walk around inside with your shoes. If the people from the cat home come to your house visit you, ask them to remove their shoes before coming inside. Maybe bring a clean bathrobe from your home, and ask your friend to wear it, kind of in the old tradition of a smoking jacket, while holding the baby? Or if you go to the house with the cat, maybe you can wear a clean bathrobe while in their house? The bathrobe should be from your house, not their house, of course. I don't know how much these measures will help, because I get the impression that cat dander is very sticky, but it can't hurt.

Plus, allergists are always telling patients who are allergic to pollen to take off their close and shower as soon as they come in from outside.