P1 Year Group Promote Anaphylaxis Awareness

Friday 20th May 2016 was Anaphylaxis Awareness Day

Anaphylaxis is an extreme and severe allergic reaction.

The whole body is affected, often within minutes of exposure to the substance which causes the allergic reaction (allergen) but sometimes after hours.

What can cause anaphylaxis?
Common causes include foods such as peanuts, tree nuts (e.g. almonds, walnuts, cashews, and Brazil nuts), sesame, fish, shellfish, dairy products and eggs.

Non-food causes include wasp or bee stings, natural latex (rubber), penicillin or any other drug or injection.

What are the symptoms of a severe allergic reaction?

• generalised flushing of the skin
• nettle rash (hives) anywhere on the body
• sense of impending doom
• swelling of throat and mouth or eyes
• difficulty in swallowing or speaking
• alterations in heart rate
• severe asthma
• sudden feeling of weakness (drop in blood pressure)
• collapse and unconsciousness

We have two children in Primary one with nut allergies. The Primary one year group decided to support this worry cause by wearing orange flowers on May 20th.

A parent of a Primary one child with a nut allergy provided the year group with posters to put up around the school and stickers for the children.

As the Primary one children had a flower shop in their play area staff though it would be lovely for the children to wear orange flowers.

On Friday 13th May we put an article about Anaphylaxis on the front page of our school website where it would be seen by anyone visiting our website and sent a short note home with our Primary one children to say we were supporting this worthy cause.

On Tuesday 17th May the children discussed the term ‘anaphylaxis’ and discovered that anaphylaxis wasn’t just an allergy to nuts but included allergies to lots of other things as well.

After our chat about anaphylaxis, relating it to nut allergies, we decided to look at the ingredients of different foods in our classes to check and see if they included the word ‘nuts’. We did not find this word on any of our food boxes as in St. Clare’s Abbey we must not have anything that has the word ‘NUTS’ or ‘MAY CONTAIN NUTS’ in its ingredients list.

On Wednesday 18th May the children put up the posters around our school including the dining hall and gave out the flowers to the adults in school. Some children went over to The Nursery and put up a poster there. We asked the caretakers if they would put a poster on the gate on Friday 20th.

On Thursday 19^th May the children looked at what we call "The Yellow Box".

All of the children know that this box contains medicine and an injection for people with an allergy, specifically a nut allergy.

On Friday 20^th, the children very proudly wore their orange flowers on the sponsored walk and then went home wearing their stickers. We also sent home a letter written by a parent about living with anaphylaxis which we urge you to read. The letter is in P1 letters sent home folder.  

We are very glad that we decided to promote awareness of Anaphylaxis as we learned that we have two members of staff who need antihistamine and an  epi pen.

We hope that our week long look at anaphylaxis, with a particular focus on nut allergies, will help our Primary One children to always remember that we cannot bring nuts, or products containing traces of nuts, into St Clare's Abbey and, that should the need arise, we know where the "Yellow Box" is.

The St Clare’s Abbey staff are also now more mindful of anaphylaxis in relation to nuts, bees and wasps and we hope our Anaphylaxis Awareness Day will contribute to the safety of all in St Clare's Abbey.