Chelsea DaPonte dug into the plate of pasta with gusto, not realising that she was about to make herself very sick.

Her mother, Becky DaPonte, had carefully requested gluten-free pasta but the waitress didn’t pay much attention.

The sauce was gluten-free; the pasta was not.

It was a big mistake. Chelsea has coeliac disease.

The six-year-old was sick throughout the evening, with stomach cramps and vomiting.

“When Chelsea was about 15 months old she started being quite ill, with vomiting and diarrhoea,” said Mrs DaPonte. “Her growth curve started going the wrong way. We did some blood tests and they came back showing positive signs for coeliac disease. The paediatrician sent us to Boston Children’s Hospital.”

The diagnosis was confirmed and Chelsea was put on a gluten-free diet.”

Many of the ordinary foods the DaPontes had fed Chelsea, such as Cheerios and Goldfish crackers, were poisoning her.

“People think that gluten-free means no bread and no pasta, but it is also no wheat, barley or rye,” Mrs DaPonte said. “Malt is barley-based. A lot of soups have a wheat base.”

Raising a young child on a gluten-free diet is complicated, to say the least.

“You can’t give a salad to a 15-month-old,” Mrs DaPonte said. “There are gluten-free options, but will a child eat them? They don’t always taste good.”

She had always loved to cook and so she set to work, learning how to cook gluten-free food and experimenting by swapping out one ingredient for another.

Michelle Thomas said there were a number of signs that her son Carter had coeliac disease as a baby.

“He never had a normal bowel movement until he went gluten-free,” said Mrs Thomas. “His bowel movements were always soft and unformed. He would also regularly become quite irritable, which can be a sign that some nutrition isn’t being absorbed.”

Mrs Thomas discovered she had coeliac disease ten years ago, when she was 27. She was on the look out for it in her now four-year-old son, as it can be inherited.

“I did not introduce gluten into his diet until he was over a year old,” she said. “I suspected it from when he was nine months old, but didn’t do any testing until he was almost three years old. I didn’t want to put him through the testing before that, because he has other medical issues.”

Although she was careful, she suspects caregivers accidentally fed her son gluten.

“Even inhaling flour dust can cause symptoms and his sitter was a big baker,” she said.

Birthday parties can be a real challenge. Mrs DaPonte sends a lunch box to birthday parties filled with gluten-free foods; Mrs Thomas keeps a list of class birthdays and always sends a gluten-free cupcake with her son on those days.

Mrs Thomas said a lot of people assume that she and her family are on a diet craze.

“It is not a fad,” she said. “If I continue to consume gluten I run the risk of developing stomach cancer.”

She said there are several restaurants in Bermuda that have gluten-free options, but few for children.

One mom put her five-year-old on a gluten-free diet in response to excessive bed wetting and constipation.

“When my daughter started having tummy aches, we mentioned it to the paediatrician who said her symptoms were not necessarily consistent with coeliac disease,” said the woman, who didn’t want to be named.

A paediatrician and a naturopath suggested eliminating different foods to see what happened. The child’s issues magically cleared after they eliminated gluten.

Nutritional therapist Catherine Burns said some people may have a food allergy or sensitivity that causes digestive reactions, behavioural problems, headaches and joint pain.

“In this instance, a person may benefit from a gluten-free diet, but they may not have coeliac disease,” she said. “That’s not to say that their symptoms aren’t debilitating so they should still be treated with respect. I think this is one of the challenges parents encounter. They feel like they are viewed as ‘fussy’ when the repercussions are, in fact, very real.”

Her advice to parents of children on gluten-free diets was to bake as much as they could themselves and to use whole ingredients.

“Stick to more natural gluten-free snacks such as carrot sticks with hummus,” she said. “Look for gluten-free products that have real ingredients with a shortlist that you understand. For example, choose a brown rice pasta that just contains brown rice rather than one with extra additives. It’s also important to include other sources of B vitamins and minerals which are often deficient in gluten-free products. That’s why it’s a good idea to consult with a registered dietitian or fully qualified nutritionist if you go this route. It’s especially important to seek qualified help for children who are growing and so have different needs.”

She warned that not all gluten-free products were healthy.

“Many gluten-free breads, cereals, cookies and mixes are full of refined flour, sugars and processed (often genetically modified) oils,” she said. “Just because something is gluten-free, doesn’t mean that it is automatically good for you.”

For more information talk to your child’s doctor or check out the Facebook group, Gluten Free Bermuda.