Gilbertsville >> It hit her instantly and unexpectedly, as inspiration seems to do, and after tucking her 5-year-old son Liam into bed one night, Danelle Matlack went to her computer and wrote “Alfie the Allergic Alligator Goes to School.”
“It’s a mouthful isn’t it,” she said with a chuckle during a recent phone interview. “But it has a really important message I want to get out there. The book isn’t just for kids with food allergies; it’s for their non-allergic peers. I just want to educate as many people as I can.”
Liam was diagnosed with food allergies when he was six months old after he was introduced to yogurt for the first time. Within minutes of ingesting and touching the milk-based food, he broke out in hives, Matlack said.
After taking her son to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for allergy testing, Matlack learned that Liam was allergic to eggs, peanuts and tree nuts, in addition to dairy. Nobody else in the family has food allergies, she said.
Matlack wrote “Alfie” to help Liam cope with having food allergies, she said. “Alfie” tells the story of a young alligator who has food allergies and is about to start his first day of school, Matlack explained. He’s sad and feels different because he has to carry an epinephrine autoinjector also known as an EpiPen used to treat anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction, as well as wear an allergy alert bracelet. But thanks to an uplifting dream, he learns that there are lots of kids that have food allergies and he can be a role model for others.
The foods that Liam is allergic to are the same one’s that Alfie is allergic to in the book, and are also some of the most common food allergies in children. In addition to eggs, peanuts, tree nuts and dairy, children are commonly allergic to soy, wheat, fish, and at times, sesame, according to Dr. Terri Brown-Whitehorn, an allergy attending physician at CHOP.
There is no specific cause for food allergies, Brown-Whitehorn said, but physicians have some ideas of what could trigger them. Some physicians believe that our environment might be “too clean,” and instead of fighting other viruses and bacteria, the immune system fights things that should be benign and not cause problems for the body, she said.
“The instance of peanut allergy increased significantly between 1997 and 2007 in the U.S. and Europe,” she said. “There was a thought that if you delayed the introduction of certain foods to kids, especially peanut, but even egg, that children would be less likely to develop allergies to those foods. That backfired. Delayed introduction seemed to increase the amount of children with at least a peanut allergy, and egg allergy, when exposed to the food later on. Nobody knows 100 percent what causes the problem.”
The number of people living with food allegories is increasing. An estimated 15 million people in the United States has a food allergy, according to Doylestown-based organization Kids With Food Allergies, a division of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. The number of children with food allergies has also grown approximately 50 percent between 1997 and 2011 with one in 13 children in the U.S. living with the condition.
Teaching children about food allergies; what a medical alert bracelet is; and food allergy safety, are some of the topics that Matlack tackles in “Alfie.” However, the story is not just for children, it’s for parents too, Matlack said. In the book Alfie’s mother is nervous about sending Alfie to school for the first time, which she said has resonated with parents who’ve read the book.
Brown-Whitehorn said she has worked with parents and children who have had anxiety due to food allergies. One way that parents and children can ease some of that angst is by working with the child’s school to make sure an action plan is in place in case of an allergic reaction.
Many schools now store and administer EpiPens in the event of an emergency, due to Pennsylvania House Bill 803, which was signed into law by former Gov. Tom Corbett in 2014, which gives schools the legal ability to store and prescribe EpiPens in emergencies through a trained staff member. Brown-Whitehorn said she was a supporter of this legislation, because she knows it will help keep children safe and could save lives.
“I think the book has helped Liam feel more comfortable,” Matlack said, noting that he helped create many of the characters in the book. “I also think he really likes the message of the book. It promotes acceptance, awareness and makes kids with food allergies feel good.”
“Alfie the Allergic Alligator Goes to School,” which was published by Mascot Books in October 2014, can be purchased at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com or picked up at the Barnes & Noble store located at The Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley in Center Valley, Pa.
