10/10/2025
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Natasha had multiple food allergies and asthma. Her symptoms were not unusual for an allergic child, yet the diagnosis dots weren’t joined up as quickly as they should have been.
As a baby, she had eczema. Our doctor prescribed a steroid cream and advised me to apply a prescribed base cream first. Natasha’s skin cracked with deep fissures and bled. She screamed in pain. I took her back to the doctor and was told she was most likely allergic to the lanolin in the base cream. It took weeks for her skin to heal.
When she was just six months old, I gave her a tiny piece of banana and she had an anaphylactic reaction that hospitalised her. Three months later, I asked our doctor if it was safe to give her cow’s milk formula, as I was worried she might also be allergic to it. I was told that as a first-time mum, it was natural to be “oversensitive”, but highly unlikely she would react again. I gave her the formula, and she had another anaphylactic reaction, just as frightening as the first. We were terrified.
Just after Natasha’s first birthday, as her eczema faded, asthma took its place. A skin prick test showed that bananas, dairy and eggs were highly allergenic, and nuts and peanuts were classed as mild. She was two years old now. We didn’t dare give her nuts or peanuts, call it a gut feeling. Soon after, she touched a breadstick with sesame seeds to her lip. I whisked it away, but it was too late, her lip came up red and sore.
Until her fatal reaction in 2016, Natasha hadn’t had an anaphylactic reaction for nine years. We thought we were doing well. Yet that summer, Natasha passed away from anaphylaxis on board a plane. She had eaten a baguette that contained hidden sesame seeds baked into the dough, an ingredient that was not disclosed on the label.
The “what if” questions can drive you mad. Instead, I focus completely on the work of the charity we started in her name, Natasha’s Foundation, and its ambitious mission to Make Allergy History.
Tanya x
