Recognising allergy in infants and young children

摘要

What is allergy? Allergy occurs when our immune system (white blood cells) mistakenly identifies harmless things in the environment (eg, milk, egg, grass pollen, pets) as a danger to the body and mounts an aggressive immune response to them. This means that each time the affected person is exposed to a sufficient quantity of the environmental substance, they suffer symptoms caused by inflammation. The symptoms may be as diverse as itching, swelling, rashes, eye, nose, breathing and stomach complaints, and are caused by the person's own immune system.