Food Allergies - Natashas Story
Dear parents/carers,
You may or may not have heard of Natasha’s Law, Natatsha was a teenage girl that suffered an anaphylactic shock and on the 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. Her father injected her with 2 EpiPens but they made no difference, such was the severity of her allergic reaction.
Natasha went into multiple cardiac arrests. The pilot decided not to make an emergency landing but to continue for another hour to its destination. When the plane landed, French Paramedics were waiting, and they continued with CPR, but it was too late.
As you can imagine, Natasha’s story has created a reason for many people to take allergies and reactions seriously, especially within schools.
Due to Natasha’s Law, as a school we are going to be changing the way in which we give food items to children.
If a child brings in any items of food for their birthdays, end of year celebrations, Discos etc we will NOT be allowing the children to eat these within school before sharing the ingredients with parents/carers beforehand.
Going forward, when a child receives an item of food within school, a photocopy of the ingredients will be sent home with your child.
Due to this, we will no longer be accepting baked goods within school.
This way, we are doing our utmost to ensure that the children are safe from any reactions or allergies.
Many thanks
Westlands Primary School