FFK77: What supplements does my child need? Part 2, with Sara Dawson

Today's episode is the second part of our two parter about vitamins and supplements for children.

In the last episode we talked through the basic UK government guidelines for average families in average times, so that was the guidelines for vitamins A, C and D for babies and children, so if you haven’t listened to that one, it's highly recommend to go back and check that out as the advice is the broad government advice for everyone.

But all families have phases where life doesn’t feel particularly normal or average and some families have additional issues to deal with all the time, so today we are going to look at a couple of different scenarios that you may have been mulling over when you were listening to the general guidelines in the last episode.

There is so much confusing information about children's diets now, and lots of it is schilling product and not necessarily well evidenced so Joanne wanted to ask an actual dietitian who has to work within proper evidence based guidelines to untangle some of that noise for us. So this episode today is the second part of the interview with dietitian Sara Dawson.

As in the last episode her advice is for general information purposes only, to give you some information about the UK recommendations, and does not replace the need to get personalised advice for your child from a GP or dietitian if you have any concerns. But hopefully these two episodes will give you a sensible starting point to cut through the online noise.

Sara is a highly specialist allergy dietitian with over 11 years’ experience, who has worked at two NHS UK allergy centres of excellence: St Thomas’ Hospital in London and Southampton. She helped establish the first adult allergy dietitian service in Southampton and now specialises in supporting children with allergies, both within the NHS and privately through her company, YNRD Ltd. She has taught and marked on the Southampton Allergy MSc and taught allergy on the Dietetics MSc at King’s College London as well as carrying out allergy research. She has also worked in CAMHS with children and with eating disorders, and is passionate about children’s nutrition, accurate allergy diagnosis, safe avoidance and reintroduction where possible, and providing realistic nutrition advice that supports a healthy relationship with food. She also specialises in allergy and eczema, and in 2024 set up the first paediatric dietitian role within the dermatology dept at Southampton Children's Hospital.

Links in this episode:

Sara's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saradawsondietitian/

Sara's website: https://www.ynrd.co.uk

Music "Happy Days" by Simon Folwar via Uppbeat