As always, you need to check with your doctor before taking any medication because your individual medical history may warrant a different recommendation.

If you experience allergy symptoms, talk to your OB/GYN to determine your options and your comfort level with medications. But even if you get the go ahead, there are many women and physicians who feel it is better to be safe than sorry and not use any medications. Either way, by reducing the allergens in your home, you can help alleviate or prevent allergy symptoms. Some things you can do include:

• Wrap mattress and pillows with zippered covers, and use pillows filled with synthetic fibers.
• Replace carpeting with smooth-finish wood or vinyl flooring. If you have carpeting, use a vacuum and make sure it has a HEPA filter system.
• Dust hard surfaces in the home with an electrostatic cloth, like Swiffer, to help remove dirt, dust and hair from hard surfaces.
• Wash bedding in hot water, as it kills dust mites.
• Avoid storing books in bedrooms.
• Keep windows closed.
• Remove pets from the home if at all possible.
• If pets must remain at home, keeping them out of the bedroom, washing them weekly and getting a HEPA filter for the bedroom will help lessen the effects of animal dander.

If you and your husband have blue eyes, there is a very good chance that your baby will have light eyes as well. Just like your children can inherit physical traits, they can also inherit allergies. If neither parent has allergies, the baby's chance of being allergic is equal to the incidence of allergies in the general population: 20 percent. If one parent suffers from allergies, the child has up to a 40 percent likelihood of having allergies. If both parents are afflicted, the risk in children rises to 70 to 80 percent.

You must remember that this will not tell you which allergic trait your child may inherit. For example, you may have an allergic nose, but your child might have eczema (skin allergy) or asthma but not have nasal allergies. Furthermore, if you have a penicillin allergy, there is no guarantee that your child will be allergic to penicillin as well. If you are peanut allergic, it does not mean your child will definitively be peanut allergic as well.

It is currently believed that you can delay the onset of allergies by breastfeeding your baby. However once you stop breastfeeding (which you eventually will), your child's risk for developing allergies will return to the original odds. Interestingly, if you avoid certain foods that are highly allergenic (tree nuts, peanuts, shellfish, eggs, milk) while you are breastfeeding, you may actually prevent these allergies from showing up in your child.

If you believe your child might have allergies, consult your doctor. Many pediatricians may not be aware that you can evaluate a child for allergies even before their first birthday. Testing is done most accurately by skin pricks. While blood tests may be done, they are not considered as accurate.

Animal allergies and dust mite allergy can be diagnosed by 6 months of age, and food allergies can be detected at any age. A child probably needs three seasons of pollen exposure to develop pollen-related allergy symptoms, so a runny nose during the spring in a 1-year-old is probably due to an infection or an indoor allergy, not due to the pollen.

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