Mild, Moderate or Severe? Recognising the Signs of an Allergic Reaction in a Young Child

And the 2026 version looks a little bit different because it's now got pictures on it instead of just the So the mild to moderate symptoms of an allergic reaction in a baby will be tingling in the mouth or swelling of the lips, face and around the eyes and sometimes around the ears as well.

We have what they call like fortune cookie ears because they get really, really swollen and obviously there's no sort of, there's nothing around the ears to soak in all that fluid so they get really, really swollen.

Hives can look slightly different on different types of skin, but mostly they're like white lumps with like a red flare around them.

So they can look a bit like a mosquito bite, which is exactly the same as the histamines come to the surface.

The other symptoms are itchy throat and abdominal pain and vomiting.

But what should, what you should remember is that abdominal pain and vomiting is actually a sign of severe allergic reaction or anaphylaxis in a bite or a sting.

Okay.

So in food, that's a mild to moderate symptom.

But with a bite or a sting from an insect, it's a severe symptom of an allergic reaction.

And if you had an EpiPen, you would give it then if it was a bite or a sting.

so the symptoms of a severe allergic reaction are swelling of the throat or with the throats feeling really really funny a hoarse voice or a different sound when they're crying or speaking the child um or a swelling of the tongue which i know you see in the films but actually that is one of the most rare symptoms i've only seen that about three or four times in 10 years a wheeze or persistent cough definitely the most common symptom The persistent cough doesn't, it isn't a big hacking cough.

It's just like this cough that just won't go away.

It just keeps going, keeps going.

And the wheeze usually comes after the persistent cough.

Now, this is not always the case.

This is just what I've observed in the last decade of seeing children go into anaphylaxis.

That's the generally the most common route that we see.

Sometimes it comes after they've got hives and been sneezing and et cetera.

But sometimes it just comes before any kind of skin reaction at all.

As I've said before, swelling or tightness in the throat, if a very young child, they might grab at their throat and that's how they're trying to tell you that it feels like that.

Sometimes an older child will say that they're dizzy.

Sometimes they'll collapse.

That's a blood pressure dropping.

If they're a very young child and they can't tell you they're dizzy, they might just go very, very pale and floppy.

So that's what happens when the blood pressure drops.