Amelia G. Smith, JD
General Counsel &
VP, Civil Rights Advocacy

Amelia G. Smith, JD

General Counsel and VP, Civil Rights Advocacy

Within hours of my son being born, he was projectile vomiting. The first five months of his life consisted of a string of trips to the pediatrician’s office with diagnoses of reflux and failure to thrive and prescriptions for every possible combination of every reflux medication on the market.  At six months old, Robert saw a pediatric gastroenterologist at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee who, after hearing Robert’s medical history, took one look at my son and his weeping eczema and suspected food allergies were at the root of Robert’s condition. I was told that in nursing my exclusively-breastfed baby, there was a possibility he was allergic to trace amounts of food allergens in my breast milk. We left that day with a referral to a board-certified allergist, a prescription for elemental formula, and instructions to eliminate the top eight food allergens from my diet before nursing my baby again. Once we were finally able to see the allergist, Robert was skin-prick tested for the top eight allergens. The wheal from the egg scratch was so large that the other results were unreadable. Through RAST testing, Robert was also diagnosed with peanut, tree nut, and shellfish allergies. My world was turned upside down with this diagnosis. At that time, the only thing I knew about food allergies was their life-threatening nature. I became consumed with educating myself about food allergies. Over the next few months I learned that my lactation consultant’s child had food allergies as did one of my daughter’s classmates. Fast friendships and a food allergy support and education organization, Food Allergic Children’s Education (FACE IT), were born. As the founder of FACE IT, I became active as an advocate at the local and national level. Robert had his first anaphylactic reaction at the age of two while at his day school, where I had just trained the staff two days prior. After this reaction, it became obvious that special accommodations were going to have to be put into place in try to prevent future reactions. As Robert made his way through a private, church-controlled day school and prepared to enter public school, I faced many of the same challenges other food allergy family face making sure that my child was appropriately accommodated to ensure that he was safe once I dropped him off every morning. My goal at FAACT is to help educate families regarding the different options and possible accommodations available to them in such settings.