Read the story of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, her personality, her allergies and how her tragic death has begun to change the world for everyone with food allergies ; by Tanya Ednan-Laperouse OBE, Natasha’s mother…
If you met Natasha, you would soon be smiling. She had an enormous heart and valued love and friendship beyond everything else. She was a wonderful daughter to us and was extremely close to her younger brother Alex.
She was a gifted artist and we have framed her beautiful artwork all around our house; she sang like an angel, was a talented figure skater; she had dreams of passing the private pilots licence to fly a gyrocopter and had already read the manual, had skydived from 12,000 feet just months before we lost her; she loved all animals and loved to ride horses; adored her pet dog Buddy who still goes up to her bedroom and waits for her to return. She could reduce us to fits of laughter in seconds with her hilarious antics. She was so brave and always up for a challenge. She was going to do amazing things in her life. We never doubted that.
Natasha’s allergies
The first sign of allergy was when Natasha was 12 weeks old and she suddenly developed eczema. Our GP gave her a steroid cream to be applied to her skin over a base cream. After applying both creams, she became much worse and her face and body were soon covered in lesions that cracked and bled. It turned out that she was allergic to the lanolin in the base cream. It was very frightening to see our baby bleeding all over her face and body.
Her first anaphylactic experiences
At 6 months old, Natasha had her first anaphylactic episode to a tiny amount of banana.
Her reaction was immediate. Her lips swelled until they split, her body turned red and she screamed in terror and pain. We rushed her to hospital but the doctors couldn’t find a vein to inject her with adrenaline (the emergency medication for anaphylaxis) because she was so tiny and her veins miniscule. We had to wait to see if she would survive … and she did. We never held her closer than in the weeks that followed. Over the next few months we learnt that this reaction to banana would not be an isolated one.
We were concerned about weaning Natasha onto dairy milk formula but we were reassured by our GP that it was highly unlikely to be an issue. She was 9 months old when we gave her the formula milk. She finished a quarter of the bottle and refused to drink anymore. Within five minutes she had her second anaphylactic reaction which was as horrific as the first one. Again, we rushed her to A&E and no vein could be found to give her life saving medicine but once again she survived.
Natasha had eczema from 12 weeks old until her first birthday. It disappeared soon after, only to be replaced by another visit to A&E because of breathing difficulties. The eczema was mysteriously replaced by what we would discover to be a much more frightening condition, asthma.
At two years old, she had her third allergic reaction. This time to sesame seeds on a bread stick and then once again at six years old to a contaminated shop bought and packaged cookie. Both times she suffered anaphylaxis.
In the early years of Natasha’s life we were terrified of feeding her an ‘unsafe’ food. No help or advice had been given to us; the internet then had little information that could help us so we relied entirely upon our own common sense and instincts. She understood the severity of her allergies from a young age and she never ate any food unless we had said it was safe for her to eat.
Asthma and it’s triggers
A well as being prone to asthma from viruses, the cold, mould and damp, Natasha also suffered breathing difficulties when in contact with chemical smells such as bleach, air-freshener, perfume and acetone and airborne milk particles in coffee shops. She was dosed up with Piriton, an antihistamine, between March and May every year because of spring blossom pollen that would trigger quite serious asthmatic reactions.
Following an asthma attack, Natasha would often be ill for weeks at a time as her lungs tried to cope with the large amounts of mucous that would settled there. Her asthma attacks had a huge allergic element to them. From reception until year four (age five until nine years old) Natasha missed about four weeks of school every term due to illness, mainly from the after effects of asthma.
Her first serious allergic asthma attack was when she was just twenty months old. We went to a coffee shop following a walk in the park which we had done a number of times. On this occasion, Natasha had a huge asthma attack that hospitalised her for three days. We discovered over time that it was due to the milk particles in the air from frothing milk for cappuccinos.
During her early primary school years she was bullied, so at the age of nine years, we decided to move her to another school. We realised then that her stress levels also played a part in her asthmatic episodes - after moving schools, and as the bullying had stopped, her asthma attacks began to lessen in frequency and within a year they halved.
By the time Natasha started secondary school her asthma was continuing to improve (though not to tree pollen in spring) and she had an average of 85% school attendance which for us was amazing!
Gaining independence with allergies
As a young teenager she wanted to go out with friends to birthday celebrations, cinema trips and Thorpe Park. She is pictured below with her friend Bethany Hollway.
We still always prepared packed lunches but in time we discovered that she could eat one dish which she loved in a well-known restaurant chain. She was over the moon!
To read more about how we did helped her to gain confidence with her allergies, you can read this blog post.
We found a few other new foods that she could eat thanks to the 2014 labelling laws for prepacked foods in shops and supermarkets and Natasha felt more confident as she got older in navigating her allergic life but she never ate something new without checking with us first. Until her fatal reaction in 2016, she hadn’t had an anaphylactic reaction for nine years. It was important to us as Natasha’s parents that she didn’t live in fear of her allergies but understood and respected their dangers. They did not define her though they did affect many areas of her life - it was a balance we needed to help her find, keeping a healthy outlook on life whilst always being alert to keeping safe.
On 17th July 2016 Natasha died from eating sesame seeds that were baked into the dough of a baguette. The label on the packaging didn’t include this ingredient and they were invisible to the naked eye. She was on a British Airways plane and had no way of receiving the urgent medical care that she so urgently needed. On that day her life ended and ours changed forever in ways we could never have imagined possible. There is truly no pain that can compare to that of losing your beloved child. She is now with God and lives on in our hearts and in our memories. Everything we do, we do in her memory and for all those who are living with food allergies and allergic asthma as she did.
Science is sure of one fact; allergic children are not born with life threatening allergies. They, and an ever increasing number of adults, become allergic and although there are many theories, science is still searching for answers.
Our journey to the implementation of Natasha’s law started following her inquest in September 2018 when we were first made aware of the legal loophole in the food law that meant prepackaged foods made and sold on the same premises didn’t have to list their ingredients. To read about how and why Natasha’s Law was implemented at such speed across the UK, click here.
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