PEDIATRICIAN DR.PAUL Answers: The short answer to your question is yes. Children can have hay fever, or more specifically, seasonal allergies. But there's more to the answer than that. Let me explain.

We now know that allergies, asthma and eczema are inherited as a group. This type of allergic tendency is referred to as an atopic tendency. Once a child is born with this tendency, we know that he has a higher chance of developing any one or more of the following: asthma, respiratory allergies, food allergies, eczema and other allergic skin rashes such as hives or urticaria.

Some children will exhibit one condition, while others may exhibit a few, and still others may exhibit all of these conditions at one time or another. Typically eczema and food allergies start at a young age, as does asthma. Respiratory allergies such as allergic rhinitis, (chronically stuffy or runny nose) is another allergy we see in children.

Because most children are exposed to indoor irritants during a high proportion of their first few years of life, we tend to see symptoms related to indoor alleges - such as stuffy nose and asthma. These are usually worse during the winter, but less severe during the summer months. As children get older we see a kind of shift in the pattern: they are better during the winter but show seasonal symptoms, usually in the spring, summer and fall. Not all children follow this same pattern. Some younger children, although infrequently, can have seasonal symptoms. More typically though, others will only develop seasonal allergies later on in life, even in adulthood.

Frankly, we do not really understand this variability. Some people have allergic tendency, and show little or no symptoms while others will have a whole host of symptoms.

Seasonal allergies basically mean allergic symptoms that occur based on a seasonal variation. The most common symptoms are related to the nose and eyes. These include stuffy, runny or itchy nose, itchy throat, and itchy and/or runny eyes. In rarer cases, a child may have a cough as the only symptom, while others may actually have asthma symptoms which include wheezing and difficulty breathing during the "Pollen Season".

The three main pollen groups are the tree pollens (May-June). Grass pollen (June-July), and ragweed pollen (Aug-Oct).

This is why some children seem to have symptoms during the change of a season. For example, in spring-summer, tree pollens are high. During late summer and into the fall period, ragweed is elevated. Discovering which specific pollen one is allergic to through allergy teasing helps us better prepare for a particular upcoming season.

For example, preventative medications and other avoidance measures (such as keeping the windows closed in the morning to avoid pollen from entering the house) can be started just at the onset of the specific pollen season.

So if a child, regardless age, has symptoms that recur at the same time of the year (particularly during the summer-fall period) seasonal allergies are a probably the cause.

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